World Bank to launch job creation programme for 10,000

The World Bank is working to create employment for thousands of Afghan former combatants. According to the Bank, the three-year programme will provide immediate jobs for 10,000 unskilled ex-soldiers and provide up to 300 former officers with employment, training and equipment to start up small businesses. “This project provides job opportunities for those ex-combatants who have joined civilian life under DDR [the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration inititiative],” Abdul Raouf Zia, an external affairs officer for the World Bank, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Tuesday. “It is obvious that those who spent years in military activities will need help to join civilian life.” He said the objective of the project was to provide immediate employment opportunities through the government's National Emergency Employment Programme (NEEP) for ex-combatants in order to facilitate their reintegration into civil society as a component of the broader Afghanistan New Beginnings Programme (ANBP) and to contribute to the government’s alternative livelihood programme in opium poppy producing areas. The government's DDR programme maintains that demobilisation of forces and their reintegration into society are essential prerequisites for the consolidation of the peace process and restoration of social and economic development in the country. The programme would also provide vocational training to 1,500 ex-combatants and would train 1,000 more in operating and maintaining road construction equipment. The Bank noted, it expected to generate 3 million labour days of employment for ex-combatants, rural workers in poppy growing areas and other Afghans living in poverty. This project will cover eight provinces of the country, Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar, Bamyan, Konduz, Jalalabad, Paktia and Badakhshan. The money, US $19.6 million, is coming from the Japanese government and will be administered by the World Bank.