Phenomenology of the accounting situation in Afghanistan

Afghanistan has ongoing programs that can develop accounting knowledge relevant to today's society. The purpose of this study is to investigate the phenomenology of the accounting situation in Afghanistan. The present research was conducted to analyze the perception and lived experience of professors and staff in the Afghanistan Ministry of Finance. For this purpose, using a qualitative method with a phenomenological approach to identify the under study phenomenon has been presented. Data were collected using Targeted Sampling and in-depth semi-structured interviews with 17 university professors, students and financial staff at the Afghan Ministry of Finance in 2020 and analyzed by Colaizzi method. However, the theoretical saturation of the data was obtained in the thirteenth interview, but to be sure the interviews continued for up to seventeen of them. Analyzing the data acquired from the interviews leads to the identification of 8 main categories that are in fact the challenges of accounting backwardness in Afghanistan, which are listed below: 1- Challenges related to universities 2- Legal challenges and non-formulation of accounting and auditing standards 3- Administrative challenges 4- Political challenges 5- Infrastructural challenges of government 6- Social challenges 7- Challenges related to economic prosperity and trade 8- Challenges related to tax assessment. Additionally, it has been cleared that in general accounting in Afghanistan is far from optimistic, and the situation requires a serious look and further investigation is needed at the issue by the Afghan government.