New multi-donor programme to strengthen district administrations

The Afghan government has launched a new US $312 million project financed by international donors to centralise and equip the country's fragile district administrations, a senior Ministry of Interior official told IRIN this week. The project, entitled the Afghanistan Stabilisation Programme (ASP), is expected to strengthen the authority of the central government beyond the capital Kabul. "Maintaining proper administration and proper buildings and complexes in districts will bridge the gap between Kabul and local administrations," deputy Interior Minister Helaluddin Hellal told IRIN after launching the main phase of ASP on Tuesday. There are 364 districts in Afghanistan's 34 provinces and due to years of devastating conflict the local administrations do not have buildings and other necessary public utilities, Hellal said. Extending central government's authority beyond Kabul has been one of the main challenges for President Karzai in post-conflict Afghanistan. Most of the district administrators are powerful people from local communities, who are at the same time local commanders or linked to military groups. They often disobey the orders of the government but they manage to stay in power because of Kabul's weakness. ASP is expected to set up all the necessary establishments to encourage qualified Afghans to work in many isolated districts of the country. "Currently many districts are administered by warlords and their gunmen, many of them with no relations or coordination with the capital," Hellal said, adding that without an organised set-up, no qualified administrator could work in those situations. "A proper and qualified district administrator needs a proper administrative set-up and good coordination and communication with Kabul and other districts," he noted. ASP is funded by the United States, UK, Japan, Holland, Canada, and the United Nations. It is designed to set up standard office premises for government departments, communications, postal systems, banking and other necessary public facilities in the centre of every district. "Only a proper local administration can bring stability and build people’s trust in the government," the deputy Interior Minister said. Hellal added that the fund also covered training of local civil servants. According to Abdul Malik Sediqi, the head of ASP, six districts have already been covered in the pilot phase and it is expected that 150 districts will be finalised by the end of next year. "We have $36 million in hand and if we obtain the required budget, ASP will take three years to cover all the districts of the country," Sediqi told IRIN. He said the programme was designed by Afghan experts and within three years ASP will also establish telephone and Internet connections in all the districts. "Meanwhile, houses will be built for senior civil servants and two vehicles allocated for district administrations, so we can easily send very qualified people to live and work in any part of the country." Many Afghans in rural areas believe a proper government set up outside Kabul is vital for post-election Afghanistan. "The problem is not just in districts, many provincial administrations lack proper administrators and proper buildings," Karim Khan, a civil servant in the isolated northeastern province of Badakhshan, told IRIN in Kabul. Khan said in many districts of Badakhshan people travelled for as much as three days to reach the centre of the province in order to process government business. "The district administrators are completely illiterate and often they receive people in their own houses," he said, adding that finding necessary public services at a district level would be "more than a dream”.