The Afghanistan Access to Justice (AA2J) project was designed during the last months of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016 as the successor project to the Justice and Human Rights in Afghanistan (JHRA) project. During a consultative process with national counterparts and donor partners, it was decided that the focus of AA2J would be to increase access to justice for vulnerable groups, with women, children, detainees and prisoners as specific target groups. The AA2J project operates under three output areas, namely; Legal aid and legal awareness; Justice sector coordination with a focus on Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW); Capacity development on human rights and legislative drafting for the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and Justice Sector Reform.

AA2J became operational on 1 April 2016. The first months were mainly a project inception period.These months were characterized by the recruitment of the project team, the development of detailed implementation plans as well as a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework. During this period, the project also laid the foundation for its key partnerships, and formalized the legal basis for the main activities. The project also initiated the process of establishing Technical Working Groups (TWGs).