Background and objectives:

UN-HABITAT has been supporting the Government of Afghanistan for the implementation of the National Solidarity Programme (NSP). which promotes a development approach where communities identify, plan, manage and monitor their own development projects via elected Community Development Councils (CDCs). NSP works to establish and build their capacity to prepare and effectively implement community development plans. CIDA is a major contributor to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) and committed financial support for NSP implementation across Afghanistan. In this regard, CIDA requested UN-HABITAT to support the expansion of NSP to two previously untouched districts: Spinboldak and Khakrez. The project supported the roll-out of NSP to Spinboldak and Khakrez and followed the standard NSP methodology to create and support 20 CDCs in each district.

Activities:
The main activities included:

• Establishing contact with community representatives.
• Holding small meetings to raise awareness about NSP and to build trust and confidence of local people towards NSP.
• Coordinating a large gathering to reinforce the need for and importance of a CDC to take charge of community level development activities.
• Assisting communities to recognize community resources and identify the community problems.
• Facilitating CDC members for analysing problems and strategy to solve them
• Encouraging communities to identify projects that can be implemented without outside support.
• Facilitating the planning process for male and female groups separately
• Assisting communities to consider non-infrastructure projects such as human capital development and income generation projects.
• Provide social mobilization and technical support following standard NSP phases and training relevant to the phases.

Result:
The results achieved were:

• A total of 40 communities participated in the NSP with CIDA’s direct funding to UN-HABITAT involving a total of 9,488 families and benefiting 66,416 people.
• 40 communities completed CDCs elections.
• The elected CDCs provided with necessary training.
• All CDCs prepared Community Development Plans (CDP).
• A total of 57 project proposals submitted and approved by the programme.
• USD 1.44 million has been disbursed to the communities by the programme. (A total USD 134 million allocated).
• 16 infrastructure subprojects completed.
• Social mobilization and engineering supports provided to 14 ongoing projects.