World Bulletin
Battling Poverty to Turn Some Big Corners By Austin Barnum
AliceGhan is located in a remote area north of Kabul. Photo credit: UNDP. |
Dec. 16 – Among the most active UN agencies working in Afghanistan is the Development Program., which aims to reduce poverty, among other goals. The agency, which has been toiling away in the country for about 50 years, faces major challenges in getting its work done. Growing urbanization, lack of jobs and infrastructure and the reintegration of former refugees present formidable obstacles for the central government and the UN. Three urban development projects have been tackling some of these issues. The efforts include building homes and roads, creating new or improved existing vocational training centers, offering job training to former refugees and ex-combatants and creating alternative means of income for farmers who have relied on poppy cultivation. The AliceGhan project, named for Afghanistan and a sister city in Australia called Alice Springs, was started in 2006 to develop a community for returning refugees and internally displaced people. It is located in a remote area north of Kabul and financed primarily by the Australian government. About 500 mud-brick, earthquake-resistant houses have been built; 4.6 miles of road have been laid and a 10-room schoolhouse finished. In addition, carpentry, bakery, tailoring, carpet weaving and masonry training courses are available for the village’s 670 residents. The $8.4 million project will end this year. “AliceGhan is a good example of the sustainable livelihoods portion of the development programs,” said B. Murali, program adviser for Afghanistan and Iran in the UN Development Program in New York. “This project had specific objectives: relocation of returning refugees and internally displaced persons in a community setting with opportunities for income earning.” One highly useful training course has been blacksmithing, Murali said, spurred by the demand in Kabul for metal security gates. In addition, the women-only courses, tailoring and carpet weaving, have attracted about 25 students in each class. Teaching women such skills has been a welcome concept for the country, Murali noted. Separate training centers are set up for men. Two major deficiencies remain at AliceGhan: inadequate water supply and access to the main Jalalabad Road, which connects to Kabul, Murali said. But the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has adopted AliceGhan as a model for replication in other areas of the country. Fixing Training Sites and Roads
The second urban Development project, begun in 2007 and virtually finished, was sponsored by Japan. It involved improving vocational training centers in nine provinces with a budget of about $2 million. Afghan construction companies and suppliers working on the centers were required to compete in a bidding process, and their tasks included building outdoor enclosures to secure generators and providing classroom furniture. Final inspections, minor repairs and managerial steps like finalizing payments must be done to officially complete this program. The final project, completed in early 2009, focused on developing a regional sustainable economy in Balkh, Kandahar and Nangahar provinces. The program trained government officials in project monitoring and evaluation; broadened employment opportunities through labor-intensive skills aimed at ex-combatants, internally displaced people, returnees, women and Afghans with disabilities; rehabilitated infrastructure such as irrigation channels and gravelling roads; established fruit tree nurseries and greenhouses for vegetable production for farmers; and cleared mines. Assessing the Development ProjectsThe sustainable livelihood programs have faced major hurdles. One problem, noted in a recent internal review of the UN Development Program’s policies, was that the national government does not have the capacity to carry out the programs sufficiently, given the level of corruption and inexperience that mar the chains of command. Besides providing housing, AliceGhan was meant to address this problem by generating a stronger link between the capital and Afghan citizens and instilling a sense of stability in at least this part of the country. Another problem is Afghanistan’s overriding insecurity, notably in the south, where alternatives for poppy cultivation are most needed but violence drives development away. The lack of jobs in Afghanistan is a “major factor in the rise of sympathy and collaboration with insurgents and the Taliban,” the internal review said. Poppy farming persists as a revenue source for the Taliban and the country as a whole. In 2008, 93 percent of the world’s poppy was grown in Afghanistan, which is one-fifth of its gross domestic product, making it the No. 1 supplier of opium poppy in the world, according to the UN Office for Drugs and Crime. The combined cultivation of Helmand, Farah, Kandahar, Oruzgan and Nimruz provinces in the south constitutes 95 percent of the poppy growing. These provinces are also insurgent strongholds, where violence goes hand in hand with profits reaped from the harvests. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2008 Afghanistan Opium Survey, 92 percent of farmers who cultivated poppy did so because it is highly profitable. The UN estimates that the Taliban received $50 million to $70 million in tax payments from poppy farmers in 2008, while local warlords, drug lords and insurgents received about $200 million to $700 million, which may be used to support Taliban forces indirectly. These figures illustrate the enormity of the narcotics problem, emphasizing the importance of providing new means of income to the rural population.
A counternarcotics trust fund was the primary source of the UN Development Program’s involvement in supporting the eradication of poppy farming, among other efforts. But donors and the Afghanistan government have shifted strategies, so that donors now engage with the government directly on these activities, and the trust fund is being wound up. For a full look at the agency’s work in Afghanistan, go to www.undp.org/afghanistan.
Austin Barnum, a policy intern at UNA-USA, is majoring in diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College and participating in the school’s UN program.
Dulcie Leimbach contributed reporting to this article. Keywords: UNDP, Afghanistan, AliceGhan, Afghanistan sustainable livelihoods, UN Office of Drugs and Crimes, poppy cultivation, Counter-Narcotics Trust Fund, B. Murali, Taliban
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