Community Development Project: National Solidarity Programme (NSP)

Background and Objectives

Background

Women CDC Meeting

After two decades of war, Afghanistan's governance system has been weakened. In response, the Government of Afghanistan and UN-HABITAT have designed the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) which is initially aimed at strengthening the network of some 30,000 self-governing community institutions. The NSP has three objectives in empowering communities: (i) re-establishing relations between government and rural communities; (ii) providing grants for the reconstruction of physical and social infrastructure; and (iii) empowering communities and establishing community-level governance structures.

Objectives

UN-HABITAT is one of the Facilitating Partners for the NSP funded by the Government of Afghanistan and World Bank. Community Development Councils (CDC) are mobilized to prepare Community Action Plans and UN-HABITAT provides technical support for the development and implementation of these plans. Components include roads, drains, schools, health facilities and irrigation. The CDC forms an important part of local governance and the interaction between communities and District level administration. UN-HABITAT has been operating in 47 districts of 9 provinces with operations in 3,258 communities.

Activities

The National Solidarity Programme is implemented in five phases:
* Undertaking community awareness-raising and problem identification;
* Establishing Community Development Councils. Council members are voted in through secret ballot and must be aged above 20 years. Each elected member represents 28 eligible voters;
* Preparing and endorsing a Community Development Plan and setting up a Community Savings Box;
* Preparing designs for community projects and submitting proposals;
* Implementing projects including monitoring, evaluation and reflective project learning.

Results

• ・The target of establishing 8,334 CDC was exceeded by 124%
• ・More than 50% of women participated in their local CDC election, against a target of 40%
• ・The target of 90% of communities contributing 10% of project costs on average was passed with 100% of communities contributing 14.5% on average
• ・The target of 1,260,000 beneficiary families was out performed by close to 1 million additional families (2,216,917)
• ・Labour days created by NSP Sub-projects totalled 14.4 million exceeding the target of 9.7 million –almost 50% above target
• ・472,234 community members were trained, around 79,000 more than targeted.

Development Partners / Partners

Development Partners: Government of Afghanistan, World Bank
Partners: Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD); Provinces of Kandahar, Farah, Herat, Bamyan, Parwan, Kapisa, Balkh, Panjshir, Nangarhar

related links :

• Project Inauguration to Mark the Completion of 7,000th Project in NSP under UN-HABITAT's Facilitation in Afghanistan (PDF 984KB)
• Cutting Ribbons to Start New Lives (PDF 104KB)
• UN-Habitat in Afghanistan (video)