A quarter century of war and civil strife in Afghanistan seriously damaged rural infrastructure and fractured local communities.
In 2003, the new government that came to power in 2001 after the defeat of the Taliban, launched its flagship National Solidarity Program (NSP), the largest ever program to improve the lives of millions of the country’s poor.
The NSP seeks to empower the grassroots of Afghan society for the first time in history by facilitating the establishment of local governance bodies - Community Development Councils (CDCs) – in villages across the country.
The Government gives block grants in cash directly to these elected bodies to help them build and restore rural infrastructure that communities choose through an inclusive decision-making process.
The program is implemented by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD). It is financed by a consortium of international donors led by the World Bank. With a total commitment of US$315 million, the World Bank is the program’s largest financier.
Approach
The NSP has contracted 24 national and international NGOs to facilitate the establishment of Community Development Councils (CDC) in villages across the country. These councils are then registered with the MRRD, making them a formal Government organization.
Once consensus is reached on people’s priorities for a small scale infrastructure project, a block grant of US$200 per family, subject to a maximum of US$ 60,000 for each village is disbursed to the council to implement the project. Grants are disbursed directly to the councils to minimize avenues for corruption. The CDCs manages the grant through a bank account with a nearby Government bank.
The participation of women in the CDCs is mandatory for communities to be eligible for the block grant.
To build ownership, the community contributes about 10 percent of the cost of each project through voluntary donation of cash, labor, or construction materials.
Achievements
Empowering communities: Some 20,000 communities across the country have elected CDCs in their villages. The NSP is the only government program to have reached all the country’s 34 provinces, touching the lives of 14 million villagers, or two out of every three rural people. It has achieved thisdespite working in extremely difficult terrain under uncertain security conditions, often in remote communities with very low levels of literacy. This very successful program is now being extended to cover a further 4000 rural communities.
Including women: Despite initial reluctance to include women in some areas, all communities now have some representation of women. While women have begun to participate alongside men in parts of the country, in the more conservative areas they have separate councils where they can express themselves more freely. Women’s councils often have their own priorities, ranging from the need for maternal and child health clinics, to assistance with micro enterprises and literacy.
Building small scale rural infrastructure: Some90 percent of the projects chosen by communities so far focus on bringing drinking water and irrigation to the villages, paving rural roads and bridges, constructing school buildings and community centers, and electrifying village communities, most of which are beyond the reach of power transmission lines. Almost half the projects taken up have been completed.
Promoting accountability and financial transparency: Village priorities have been decided through a consultative, participatory and transparent decision making process. Subcommittees formed under the CDC umbrella have taken on the responsibility for procurement, as well as for managing the finances and construction of the project. M ore than 80 percent of the labor has been provided by communities themselves, generating wages for the poor and halving the cost of their projects.
Developing skills: The NSP is rebuilding skills that were seriously eroded during twenty years of war and unrest. It employs some 4000 Afghan nationals, and has developed the skills of 600,000 CDC members across the country in planning and supervising projects, and managing finances transparently.
Fostering trust in the government: Communities where the program operates have expressed greater trust in the government and are more optimistic about the future. CDCs have also become a forum for conflict resolution in the villages and promote cohesion within and between communities.
Challenges Ahead
Security: Deteriorating security conditions in certain parts of the country, especially in the east and the south, are a serious handicap to the effective implementation of the project in these areas.
Sustainability: While the NSP has made a good beginning in setting up democratic institutions in the villages, it will take a number of years for these institutions to take firm root. The Government is preparing a CDC by law to lay the foundation for sustainable institutions.
Capacity: Communities will need to build further capacity, especially in the financial management of projects. Where groups of villages come together to pool their grants to build larger infrastructure projects such as multi-village irrigation canals, longer roads or links to the power grid, they will need greater technical assistance and a strong mechanism for inter-ministerial coordination to assist them.
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