On February 5, a Facebook post regarding the activities of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Afghanistan claimed that discarded USAID documents allegedly revealed that the agency had a gender-related program in Afghanistan aimed at “changing gender values.” The author of the post concludes that “Democrats were trying to create transgender people from the Taliban.” As the post’s author states, the claim is based on a video shared on platform X by businessman Elon Musk. The post also includes a screenshot from the same social media platform showing a document titled “Gender-Sensitive Training” with USAID and DAI logos visible on it.
The information about USAID’s activities in Afghanistan is being spread manipulatively, falsely implying that the agency conducted gender training for the Taliban to change their values. Additionally, the program is incorrectly linked to transgender issues. While USAID did have several gender-related programs, they focused on the economic and social empowerment of Afghan women and also aimed to encourage their participation in agricultural life. There is no evidence of a USAID program in Afghanistan designed to change Afghan men’s gender identity. A partner company of USAID in Afghanistan also confirmed that their projects were aimed at women’s empowerment and there was no program related to gender identity changes.
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What Do We Know About USAID’s Activities in Afghanistan and Gender Training Programs?
Since February 7, USAID’s website has been offline. In recent days, when it was accessible, a message appeared informing visitors that the agency’s staff had been placed on leave and that programs were suspended. The shutdown of the website followed a decision by President Donald Trump to fully suspend U.S. foreign aid for 90 days.
It is also impossible to verify the amount and scope of USAID’s assistance allocated to Afghanistan via its website. Information about the value chain and the Women’s Agricultural Credit Shura can be found on the DAI website, a company that implemented USAID’s programs in Afghanistan. The Value Chains Program (AVCP) in Afghanistan was set to run from 2018 to 2025 and had an agricultural focus. The program aimed to strengthen businesses related to livestock and crops and help them become more profitable. AVCP assisted vulnerable farming communities and households and supported activities designed to increase domestic food production.
The second program, titled “Women’s Agricultural Credit Shura,” was a USAID-funded project in Afghanistan. The word “Shura” is defined in dictionaries as a decision-making consultative council or assembly and is used in Islamic culture. In 2019, USAID described the program as aiming to raise awareness among women in agricultural communities and assist female farmers who operate agriculture-related businesses in Afghanistan. This program was launched in Afghanistan in 2002, with the U.S. Agency for International Development allocating $17 billion in aid up until 2019. The program did not include training related to gender identity for men.
To obtain more information about USAID’s programs in Afghanistan, we reached out to DAI in writing. The organization’s vice president, Steven O’Connor, clarified that these programs did not involve gender identity training. He also confirmed that the programs shown in the video focused on empowering Afghan women, integrating them into the agricultural sector, and supporting their economic development.
For years, USAID worked in Afghanistan on women’s empowerment and conducted gender equality training. However, their program reviews do not mention any training for Afghan men or the Taliban regarding gender identity or the goal of changing their gender identity. In the “Transformation Decade” (2015–2024), USAID’s goal was to promote gender equality in Afghanistan and prioritize it.
In 2022, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul announced that the U.S., together with the United Nations, would allocate $30 million to protect women’s rights in Afghanistan, as these rights had been restricted by the Taliban.
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Who Is Spreading the Information, and What Do We Learn from the Video Published on X?
A post circulating on social media includes a screenshot of a video published on platform X. The account, named Callum, indicates that the person is from the UK and has his own YouTube channel. The real name of the account holder is Callum Darragh. His YouTube channel features travel video content, and he also participates in the “Podcast of the Lotus Eaters.” Upon exploring Callum Darragh’s channel, we learn that he has visited the self-proclaimed separatist region of Transnistria in Moldova and the occupied Ukrainian territory of Luhansk. In the video from his trip to Luhansk, he shows a map of Russia that includes Crimea and western Ukraine and refers to various Ukrainian cities as territories that recently joined Russia. The YouTuber states that, in the hour-long video, he will offer viewers the Russian perspective of the war, though he clarifies that this should not be seen as glorifying the war, as such content would be removed by YouTube. Callum Darragh also mentions that the Russian perspective on the war is rarely heard in the West. In the description of the video, he writes that he is traveling around modern-day Russia, including Luhansk.
In the video about Ukraine, he repeats several messages of Russian propaganda. For example, he presents the 2014 Maidan revolution and the Russia-Ukraine war as a conflict between Washington and Moscow.
Callum Darragh published a video about USAID’s training programs in Afghanistan on X on February 3, 2025, though the identical video has also been posted on his YouTube channel, dating back to 2022. Darragh responded to businessman Elon Musk’s statement, which called USAID a terrorist organization, with a video. In the video filmed in Afghanistan, he claims to have found a trash pile with empty folders from USAID projects. Darragh states that he found trash that Afghans do not need. He films several folders labeled “USAID Afghanistan Value Chains Program and Gender Sensitive Training” and “Women’s Agricultural Credit Shura,” with dates from 2019–2020.
Neither the short video on X nor the full version provides additional details about the folders Darragh found in Afghanistan. However, he posts another image on X showing the same documents. On the empty folders, we can see the logos of USAID and the American economic company DAI.
The spread of misleading information about the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) began after Donald Trump criticized its leaders and suspended USAID programs for 90 days. Myths Detector fact-checked the disinformation and manipulative posts circulated about the agency and its activities.
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