National Solidarity Programme to boost rehabilitation

The government has announced that intensive rehabilitation projects will be undertaken in 5,000 villages country-wide within the next four weeks under the National Solidarity Programme (NSP). The announcement follows the inauguration of the fifth launch of the NSP in the central Bamian Province last week. "The NSP has already been launched in five provinces, including Farah, Herat, Kandahar, Parvan and Bamian, and will be undertaken in all other provinces in the next four weeks," Rural Rehabilitation and Development Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar told IRIN in Bamian. Established by the government, the NSP is a US $600 million three-year programme designed to develop the capacity of communities through democratically elected local institutions to identify, plan, manage and monitor their own reconstruction and development models. Atmar said the NSP had an implementation framework that included a methodology for providing direct financing to communities; transparent election procedures for community institutions; and community management of reconstruction and development. "This methodology focuses on fostering a commitment to pursuing the development and strengthening of inclusive community institutions through participatory planning and resource management," he explained. The ministry specified that in the first year, three target districts had been selected in each province based on vulnerability data in terms of severity of drought impact and the number of internally displaced persons and refugees. "In year one, the amount allocated per district will be up to US $1.6 million, to be divided among communities with a total population comprising around 8,000 families," Atmar said, noting that in three years the programme would cover all the districts and villages throughout the country. According to the minister, of the $92 million estimated cost for the first year, only $22 million had been granted by the World Bank, with the balance yet to be pledged by donors. The NSP is a completely new initiative and, for the first time in the history of Afghan rehabilitation, the donor fund is being given directly to the government for a nationwide rehabilitation purpose. However, the government said, as the NSP was new and had a huge task in the first year, the government's capacity did not suffice for the overall implementation needs, and therefore international facilitating partners needed to be brought in. "We have contracted with Habitat [United Nations Human Settlement Programme] to oversee the NSP process in the five provinces that have been selected so far," Atmar said, adding that more facilitating partners were planned to undertake the work in different provinces. Habitat, which has a long experience in community mobilisation in Afghanistan, said NSP would cultivate a culture of community governance and consultation where people would be given the chance to develop ownership. "The NSP aims to lay the foundations for a long-term strengthening of local governance, to make it more inclusive, and to provide assistance for reconstruction and development of communities," Friedrich Affolter, a Habitat training adviser, told IRIN, noting that Habitat had hired male and female local facilitators who were undertaking needs assessments through consultations with elders and small household groups. "We have to coach the community in a process where it matures organically and takes responsibility," he said.

The fifth launch of the NSP took place in Bamian

According to Safdar Ali, a resident of Bamian, people will successfully implement the NSP, but that the allocation per village - ranging from $20,000 to $60,000 - might not be sufficient as most of the projects were long-term development programmes in nature. "For us, the NSP is more important for uniting and strengthening communities, because it creates a sense of possession in the rehabilitation of the country," the 35-year-old teacher told IRIN. While Atmar remained confident that the multimillion dollar project would not face funding problems, as many donors, including the World Bank, had shown interest in supporting the programme, he maintained that security would remain a key challenge for the nationwide undertaking. "Now that we have international companies and expatriates working with us, security will be a big challenge," he explained. Habitat, which is at present the only NSP player in the five provinces, said it had already reduced some of its activities in some provinces due to security concerns. "We have interesting projects, but we cannot work in all areas," Affolter said, even though he believed the successful implementation of NSP would itself contribute to security.