WASHINGTON, December 7, 2006─ The rural poor in Afghanistan stand to benefit from a US$120 million World Bank grant to improve and expand the National Solidarity Program (NSP), a community-driven development program designed to combat rural poverty through support to rural infrastructure and community-level governance.
The Second Emergency National Solidarity Project, approved today by the World Bank, will support expansion of NSP to new districts, and strengthen community-level governance. The program facilitates a process through which rural communities organize themselves and identify their development needs and priorities. It also builds a collaborative partnership among central and provincial government, local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the communities themselves.
Since its inception and being implemented by the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) in 2003, the NSP has touched over 65 percent of Afghanistan’s rural population, or about 14 million people in 16,254 communities throughout the country. The grant will allow NSP to reach out to some additional 4,300 communities across Afghanistan, a country of 29 million people.
So far NSP has made significant progress. Some of its notable achievements are:
·28 percent of the population now has access to drinking water and improved sanitation
·11 percent of children are learning in reconstructed school buildings
·18 percent of the population has access to improved irrigation systems
·16 percent has access to power through either micro hydro power stations and/or generators
·25 percent has access to markets through improved secondary or tertiary road networks
“For every success, there remain formidable, and numerous challenges,”saidNorman Bentley Piccioni, World Bank Lead Rural Development Specialist and Project Team Leader.“These are particularly demanding in rural Afghanistan, which is home to nearly 80 percent of the population. The NSP has provento be very effective in providing essential services such as drinking water, sanitation, roads, and schools to the rural poor.”
The project has empowered local communities through the establishment of a village-level consultative decision making mechanism. It has allowed using representative local leadership as a basis for interaction within and between communities on the one hand and the administration and aid agencies on the other. It has financed loca- level reconstruction, development, and capacity building through block grants.
“Through these benefits, we hope the project will contribute to stability and a decrease in poverty levels in Afghanistan,”saidNihal Fernando, World Bank Senior Rural Development Specialist and Project co-Team Leader.“Within three years, we expect that the NSP will have covered all districts across the country, making available basic social and productive infrastructure.”
Under NSP, more than half of the community projects involve productive infrastructure such as irrigation, roads and village electrification, thereby promoting productivity and stimulating local economies. A further 26 percent involves safe water and sanitation which assures better health for the communities. More than 80 percent of all labor required under the subprojects and paid by the block grants is provided by the communities.
By end-November 2006, about 10,806 Community Development Council (CDCs) had received block grants to fund 19,914 subprojects. A total of 8,199 priority subprojects had been completed with 22,283 subproject proposals approved and currently being implemented by the communities themselves.
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