Contry facts

Policical situation in Afghanistan, brief   The international project work dealing with civil society development in Afghanistan started only few years after the Taliban was beating by the USA some 10 years ago. It was now possible to start large scale development projects and not only humanitarian aid projects. It was as well possible to walk around in Kabul and in most of the country mostly in the Eastern part of the country. This without being covered by burka and without security guards. The situation has however changed to the worse. When we left Kabul we were not allowed to walk around in public any longer and only with security guards. Not only us fee sorry for the situation this does the Afghan people too.        CIVIL SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT IN 32 PROVINCES OF AFGHANISATAN   The Project’ The National Solidarity Program’ (NSP) was first big flagship in the country.   Official opening of the NSP programby the Minister of Rural Development in Kabul   The country has many thousands small communities; these might be managed by more or less legally gatherings, that wesre contacted by the Project’s 35 international and national NGOs. They were subcontracted by the Project NSP. The goals have more directions: 1) to establish local councils build on democratically principles, 2) to involve women in decision making in the new councils and 3) to reconstruct the damaged infrastructure; it could be roads, schools, health clinics and water supply as well as electricity, if possible.

There was a huge demand for training of all the local community representatives of local citizens that a cascade system of training became developed. Hundreds of trainer sessions were conducted in Kabul in order to train at the very local level. Not always easy to get the logistic in place as many communities only were access able via donkeys and horses. Many hundreds of engineers were trained for infrastructure mini projects, as well as several book keepers; all in order to be able to manage the mico projects which were decided by the new local councils together with the local communities. Many monitor assistants were trained as well, this to guarantee feed back to the main office in Kabul. The baking system were developed in many Provinces during the Project implementation.              The most difficult issue was the men’s acceptance of women involvement. We must constantly find alternative solutions for meeting facilities; a blanket between the two sexes, two local councils, one for men and one for women, where the oldest and most respected women was allowed to present the women’s wishes.      The Project’s progress was promoted via radio board casting as a radio play called: ‘The life in a community’. The ability to communicate over distance changed rapidly; from communication with military equipment to Mobil and Internet within 3 years. It’s amazing to stand in a village far from everything in the mountains using PC and Mobil; Here the use of pencils and paper was jumped over with the new technology.        The Project is to day managed by the Afghans themselves under the Ministry of Rural Development and is supported by an international fund, where Denmark among others are among the supporters. More than 10.000 small communities have been involved in the reconstruction of their own local area and may have started to cooperate with neighbour communities in order to active better impact of their micro projects.     The Project was supported by the World Bank   The Project’s lead applicant was GTZ ((now GIZ Deutche Gesellshaft fûr Internationale Zusammenarbeit) Deh’s Danish project manager for Belarus was training expert and evaluator for the Project’s Media department.     ADULT EDUCATION OF AFGHANISTAN’S MANY ILLITERATE WOMEN AND GIRL

The Project 'LCEP'(Learning for Community Empowerment Programme)   LCEP education certificate for girls and young women in Bragram Province.   The NSP Programme has managed to manuring the ground for more education and training. The most foreseen local communities were invited to participate in adult education aimed at local development and business development. It was big words but the LCEP program managed to educate in reading, writing and to calculate based on day to day issues.  And yes it’s possible to get a 3rd degree level within only 7 months of max. 2 hours per day, if the motivation is in place.        Mere than 10.000 women and men, of this most women and young girls, received a 3rd basic school degree certificate issued by the Ministry of Education in Afghanisatan. During this process a personal number system became developed to guarantee that the right student got the right diploma and certificate; this is not easy when a women looses her surname when she gets married and instead is called for example ’Gina who lives at the well’.         I asked during one of the ceremonies what the women then would use the new knowledge for. And the answer came prompt: ‘for education of 25 more women and young girls’! All the training materials were kept in metal boxes and often hidden away in the dunghill, that it was safe in case of Taliban’s arrival.   One of my teachers said to me: ‘Educate one women and 25 more will be educated; educate one man and only this man will be educated!’       The Project is futher carried out by the Afghans themselves and the Ministry og Education; and by help of  an International NGO    The Project was supported by the USAID (USA AID program) The Project’s lead applicant was EDC (EducationDevelopmentCenter) in WashingtonDC. USA deh's Danish project manager for Belarus was Project M& E