Special report on the struggle for shelter

Standing outside his family's newly constructed home, nine-year-old Mas'ud could not have been prouder. "This is our home, so of course I am happy. Our house will soon be ready," he told IRIN. Originally from Mir Bacha Kot district, a once prosperous enclave in Afghanistan's renowned Shomali plains, he and his family fled the village when Taliban soldiers seized control four years ago. Like thousands of other families, Mas'ud and his relatives are now back to rebuild their homes - and their lives - creating one of the greatest challenges for the aid community today. "Shelter is one of our top priorities," Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) Hanif Atmar told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul. "We really need to push the donors on this issue." Finding somewhere to live is becoming critical for returnees. Some 100,000 shelters are needed throughout Afghanistan for returning refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), as well as for an extremely poor population living or sharing very limited covered space, both in urban and rural areas. In short, the challenge facing the MRRD and the aid community is daunting. Well over 1.7 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan and Iran to their homeland, while hundreds of thousands of IDPs are looking to return to their places of origin. While the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) remains the key actor in the field of shelter, such a huge task cannot be tackled by one agency alone. According to the UNHCR's spokesman in Geneva, Peter Kessler, the agency initially planned to distribute 96,000 shelter kits this year. However, due to a lack early in the year of the funds needed to purchase the necessary supplies in time to ensure delivery, the operation had to be scaled back to 40,000 units. "We currently have a shortfall of US $19.9 million," he told IRIN. Other factors contributing to the scaling down included difficulties in identifying NGO partners with the necessary staff able to administer such a massive programme throughout the country, he explained, adding that the logistics of arranging delivery of such a vast amount of supplies in the midst of such a huge repatriation was also a constraint. But the challenge of shelter goes far beyond pure logistics. Today the shelter issue is being addressed by the government along with the UN and NGO community. The main funders of shelter programmes are UNHCR, the UN Development Programme, the EC's Humanitarian Aid Office, the International Organisation for Migration, as well as CARE International, while the main implementing agencies are the MRRD, the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (Habitat), the International Rescue Committee (IRC) as well as an assortment of international and local NGOs. In areas like Shomali, such efforts are badly needed. Once known as the vineyard of Kabul, this fertile area of 1,500 sq km - or almost half the size of Luxembourg - 40 km north of the capital, suffers from an acute housing shortage. According to information supplied to IRIN by the MRRD, some 30,000 shelters are needed in the Shomali area alone. "This is one of the critical areas," Atmar said. In fact, with winter fast approaching and the number of Afghans returning home increasing, the need for shelter has never been greater. Of the 70,000 inhabitants that once lived in Mir Bacha Kot - an area comprising 36 villages - some 50,000 have returned since the beginning of this year alone. As aid workers race against time, thousands of homes, devastated after years of conflict and neglect, need to be rebuilt. Ahmed Rashid, in his book the "Taliban", said until the middle of 1999, the valley was home to mainly ethnic Tajik farmers. In September that year, anti-Taliban forces, including those of Ahmad Shah Mas'ud, also Tajik, surrounded Kabul. During the ensuing fighting, Taliban soldiers swept through the area, forcing out everyone - nearly 180,000 people. Not satisfied with "cleansing" the valley of its Tajik population, the Taliban implemented a scorched-earth policy as they subsequently retreated - poisoning wells, blowing up irrigation ditches, and destroying orchards. The livelihood of the farmers was shattered, ensuring "that the local Tajik population would not return in a hurry". While the Taliban were turning Kabul’s agricultural belt into a wasteland, devastating thousands of homes, almost all the valley’s residents left. But following the demise of the hardline regime, and in the course of just a few months, change is now in the air as more and more Afghans return home. "Shomali is definitely making a comeback. Life is returning," Wahid Abdul Ahad, an MRRD engineering adviser, told IRIN. "Three months ago, I had no hope. Now people are truly coming back with enthusiasm." Such optimism is reflected in the face of 28-year-old Safiullah, a recent returnee from Kabul who, like many of his neighbours, is rebuilding his home in Mir Bacha Kot. Despite having lost a leg to a mine and having limited job prospects, this father of two is elated to be back - and also to be on the receiving end of a major shelter initiative by Habitat in the area. Awaiting a delivery of doors and windows to finish off his simple mud-brick house, he told IRIN: "I may not have a job, but at least I have my own home. That's my hope." In consultation with MRRD, and working in three districts, including Shakardara, Karabagh, and Mir Bacha Kot, Habitat is stepping up its efforts to assist thousands like Safiullah reconstruct their homes throughout the Shomali plains. The agency is currently working on 3,000 homes - 1,000 in each district - benefiting approximately 21,000 people. "The programme began on 2 September, with a target completion date for the end of November," Lalith Lankatilleke, a housing specialist for Habitat, told IRIN. As part of the programme, families are provided with timber, doors and windows at a total budgeted cost of US $350. What makes the programme unique is that beneficiaries have a choice as to the size and lengths of the procurements. "This is what makes our programme different," he said. While homes in the area are traditionally quite large architecturally - with two to three families living in separate homes within one compound - residents are being encouraged initially to keep their homes small. "The important thing is that they finish two rooms before the winter," he emphasised. Work has been carefully organised to engage the full participation of the local communities. Representatives from the district shuras, or village councils, have formed management committees, each of which has a technical consultant from Habitat. The technical officers from the UN then accompany the district shura to each household to identify the necessary materials required to rebuild each home. "The important thing here is transparency, and to give the decision-making process to the communities themselves," Lankatilleke stressed. As part its national-area-based programme, Habitat has also set up local workshops with cash donations of US $2,000, enabling craftsmen to buy materials and employ apprentices, while serving their own communities. "This helps spawn local entrepreneurship and brings cash into the local economy," he said. As for the current challenges the programme is facing, the housing specialist explained that they needed more roofing posts, poles, doors and windows, adding that because many of the wooden beams needed were being procured in neighbouring Bamian Province - an area dependent on the timber and potato trade - many of the commercial vehicles in the area were currently being used for the potato harvest, rendering timely transport of much needed material an additional burden. Such difficulties are common, and given the already limited number of trees in the country, some agencies have resorted to bringing timber in from as far away as Pakistan, Italy, Russia, and South Africa. "Afghanistan suffers from a major lack of timber due to major deforestation incurred from two decades of fighting," Abdul Ahad added. But Habitat is not limiting its activities to Shomali. Working over a three year period, the agency is already planning a major housing programme in Kabul and other major cities. The programme will be similar, but will involve different techniques. "After the winter, Habitat would like to assist 60,000 families," Lankatilleke said, adding that it had already completed a reconstruction plan called People's Rebuilding Housing Development Strategy, which had been adopted by the Afghan government. "We have 63,000 houses which were damaged or destroyed in Kabul alone," he asserted. This in itself will prove a major undertaking, requiring a thorough regularisation of informal settlements, which constitute approximately 48 percent of the capital's housing stock. "Much of the construction in Kabul was illegal and informal, and these homes need to be recognised with security of tenure," he added. Speaking at a four-day conference on urban planning last month, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the country's capital should be rebuilt, but attention also had to be given to rural areas. "We have to rebuild our villages and provinces because we have too many people living in Kabul," he reportedly said, adding rebuilding the country's villages would curb the runaway migration to urban areas, already strained after a major influx of people. Meanwhile, back at the MRRD, Minister Atmar applauded the ongoing efforts, noting at the same time, the challenge ahead. "Our response in terms of coverage is inadequate. We are not covering all those people who need shelter," he observed. He noted, however, that while working in coordination with the international community, the ministry's information as to the true extent of the problem remained sketchy at best. "Information needs resources, which this government doesn't have," he said. Adding to the challenge, he noted, was the absence of a common policy on shelter. "Everyone does it in his or her own way." In an effort to resolve the issue, his ministry was now looking to establish a better understanding of the true shelter needs of the population, while at the same time coordinating the various shelter responses on the basis of a government policy on housing. "These are our main priorities now," Atmar said.