History and Biodata |
Background:
The development objective for the Citizens’ Charter Afghanistan Project is to improve the delivery of core infrastructure and social services to participating communities through strengthened Community Development Councils (CDCs). These services are part of a minimum service standards package that the Government is committed to delivering to the citizens of Afghanistan. Citizens’ Charter Afghanistan Project will seek to address key limitations of line agency efforts and NSP to date, andrespond to financial constraints to national development investments. First, it will bringtogether under one umbrella program the rural and urban community level work. Second, consolidating service delivery under the Citizens’ Charter brings manyadvantages to Afghanistan’s development planning. This transition means that there will be increased emphasis on linking CDCs withlocal government institutions and ministries following a systems-based rather than project based approach. To provide improved services, the Citizens’ Charter will set a threshold of core infrastructure and services that the government will provide to all accessible communities over the next ten years. The Citizens’ Charter will be the first inter-ministerial program where Ministriesc ollaborate on a single program in both rural and urban areas. This project comprises four components.(20190701)
ACTIVITIES
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Urban Services: Provides access to urban infrastructure (potable water, street upgrading and drainage, lighting, installation of parks, solid waste management, and livelihood projects for women
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Rural Services: Provides access to clean drinking water and access to infrastructure (road access, electricity, or small-scale irrigation)
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Ministry of Public Health Services: Provides basic health services and registered pharmacies
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Ministry of Education Services: Provides students in government schools with 24-36 hours of education per week
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
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Reached nearly 12,213 urban and rural communities in 34 provinces
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Disbursed more than $160 million in community grants
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Launched over 8,526 projects selected by Community Development Councils
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Increased women’s participation in decision-making process (49 percent of 200,000 elected Community Development Council members and 50 percent of Community Development Council officers are women)
More Background:
On 25 September 2016, President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Dr Abdullah Abdullah inaugurated a 10-year programme called Citizens’ Charter with the aim of improving services to the people. The Citizens Charter was one of the five documents that were presented to the Brussels Conference on 5 October 2016. The idea of the Citizens’ Charter originated from a Community Development Councils (CDCs) Jirga which was held in Kabul in 2014 and was also used by Ghani for this presidential campaign. The CDCs asked the president and government to continue the National Solidarity Programme (NSP). As a result, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG), Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) and Ministry of Education (MoE) with the coordination of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) developed the Citizens’ Charter which is now considered an evolution of the NSP.
The Citizens’ Charter as planned would be rolled out in three phases, with each phase being three-years long. In the first and current phase of the project of four years from October 2016 to October 2020, a third of districts would be covered, in the second phase another third of districts, and in the last phase the final third of districts. However, the actual rollout was constrained by an evolving security environment that made project implementation significantly more difficult in many locations than had originally been anticipated during the planning stages. This has led to the belief that a time frame of ten years (up to 2026) is unrealistic and that the programme would realistically require about 15 years to be rolled out in all the districts in Afghanistan. Each phase is expected to cover around 12,000 rural communities, 600 urban communities and 120 urban gozars.
The Citizens’ Charter Afghanistan Project (CCAP) is supported through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) and the World Bank. As with the NSP, it is implemented by the Ministry for Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), with the help from international and local NGOs. The NGOs work directly with communities and help them to develop the socio-political analysis of their community. Based on these analyses, development projects are carefully selected and implemented at the community level under the auspice of MRRD. In short, the NGOs are delivering soft components of the programme, while the government is in charge of the hard (infrastructure) component. |