While the Taliban is very much a product of the madrasa, the numerous religious schools in exile financed by conservative Arabic states to combat both Soviet and Iranian Shi'ite influence, the millions of girls and women in exile have depended too much on their own resources to accept uncritically either the Taliban's policies or the Northern Alliance's murderous ineptitude. Before Taliban made foreign and international agencies' reconstruction difficult or impossible, several foreign international organisations had accomplished valuable work in education, health-care, village engineering, agriculture and mine clearance within Afghanistan and refugee relief outside. To a certain extent agencies have operated cautiously believing that Afghanistan is an Islamic preserve and aid will be interpreted as a threat to Islam. Consequently some agencies have been criticised for merely providing basic needs to refugees while ignoring their potential. This mitigates against investing in Afghans themselves.
Afghan exiles are diverse and scattered world-wide.
Ideally, RAWA's university would serve as a coordinating body for Afghan expertise as well as a training centre initially offering courses in health-care and education but later medicine, business, administration, information technology, rural development and other disciplines. The first step is relatively simple. Certain countries permit the operation of on-line universities with concomitant accreditation bodies. In addition, challenge examinations are available such as CLEP and GRE that enable students to accumulate credits towards an internationally recognised degree. For example courses in the Theory and Practice of Childhood Education and Women's Health Care, albeit for a small number of students, could be up and running on line in a very short time administered and tutored by a handful of sympathetic unpaid international academics.