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USAID/OTI Afghanistan Field Report February 2004
Program Description
USAID/OTI's program goal is to increase citizen awareness and confidence in the process of recovery, rehabilitation and democratic political development in post-conflict Afghanistan. Towards accomplishing this goal, OTI’s three objectives are to:
- Increase the capacity of the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan (TISA) to interact with and respond to citizens’ priorities;
- Increase the capacity of the Afghan media;
- Increase citizen awareness of and participation in democratic processes.
Working with central and provincial governments, national and international NGOs, informal community groups, and media outlets, OTI identifies and supports critical initiatives that facilitate implementation of the Bonn Agreement, which was designed to move the country further along the continuum from war to peace. OTI’s rapid support for activities in Afghanistan’s transition period also helps to establish credibility and space for longer-term development assistance. Projects are funded in 31 provinces of the country. To date a total of 505 grants and sub-grants have been cleared for implementation. These grants advance OTI objectives by:
- Reestablishing relationships and routines that give communities cohesiveness;
- Strengthening economic recovery by improving essential commercial and public infrastructure;
- Contributing to sustainable stability and recovery by helping the Afghan government to function outside Kabul and respond to community priorities;
- Improving communications infrastructure;
- Strengthening independent media; and
- Creating and/or strengthening linkages among the national, provincial, and district governments
USAID/OTI’s program in Afghanistan is from October 2001 – June 2004. To date, OTI has spent $55 million from various funding sources: Transition Initiative Funds (TI), International Disaster Assistance Funds (IDA), Development Assistance Funds (DA), and State Department Economic Support Funds (ESF). OTI’s fiscal year 2002 budget was $27 million, the fiscal year 2003 budget was $19 million, and the current estimate for the fiscal year 2004 budget is $25 million.
OTI’s current implementing partners are the International Organization for Migration—Afghanistan Transition Initiative (IOM-ATI) and Internews. IOM-ATI offices are located in Kabul, Bamyan, Gardez, Herat, Kandahar, Kunduz, Maimana and Mazar. Previous USAID/OTI partners included the Voice of America (VOA), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and Ronco.
Country Situation
Approximately one million of the 10.5 million eligible voters in Afghanistan have registered for elections scheduled in June 2004. Of those registered only 28% were women. One political party has been officially recognized, the Republican Party. Also in February, the United Nations introduced new operational plans for voter registration. However, no electoral law has been enacted and security problems have limited voter registration to major cities in a country where 70 percent of the population is rural. In an interview with Reuters this week, Mullah Dadullah -- a top militant commander blamed for ordering the killing of a foreign Red Cross worker last year and for a series of massacres during the Taliban’s rule as well as the destruction of two ancient giant Buddha statues in Bamyan -- warned that those Afghans who try to vote in the June 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections will face attack from the Taliban.
U.S. Armed Services report that twelve Provincial Reconstruction Teams are operating in Afghanistan. Three of them are operated by coalition partners - New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Germany under the auspices of NATO. The others are operated by the United States.
USAID/OTI’s primary implementing partner, the International Organization for Migration – Afghanistan Transition Initiative (IOM-ATI) reported that the overall security situation in the northern and central regions remained calm enough in February that it did not affect program implementation.
The news was not positive for the south, however, where IOM-ATI reported that the region witnessed a number of major security incidents. On February 22, a civilian helicopter was attacked after it landed in the village of Taluqan, Panjwai District. The pilot was killed and the others were seriously injured. Nearly all IOM planned road missions to Helmand, Uruzgan, Zabul, and Nimroz provinces could not be carried out as the situation was not deemed secure enough. In Kandahar Province, road missions to districts outside of the capital were suspended except in four cases (Dand, Daman, Zahri dasht and Ar-ghandab.) In the southwest province of Farah, unknown gunmen on the road to Farah city murdered four Afghan staff members of a humanitarian mine clearance organization (OMAR).
In the southeast, fighting continued to affect travel and implementation of USAID-supported activities. Fighting was reported in the provinces of Khost, Pakya and Paktika. In Paktika, IOM reported that two rockets were fired toward the Governor’s office in Sharana. IOM also discovered a Mujahedeen letter circulating in Gardez informing citizens to stop collaborating with Americans and the Afghan government.
USAID/OTI Highlights
A. Narrative Summary
Overview: In February, USAID/OTI began implementation of a $15 million USAID media strategy, which is a follow-on to earlier OTI media efforts from October 2001 – January 2004 worth $7.3 million. All activities will be funded through the Internews and IOM-ATI implementing partners. To manage the program, Adam Kaplan was hired through IOM as a Media Advisor to USAID/OTI. OTI Director David Taylor visited Afghanistan to review program progress and meet with U.S. Government, Government of Afghanistan, and implementing partner representatives. USAID/OTI and IOM-ATI staff participated in a joint workshop for IOM-ATI staff from all field offices to review accomplishments, best practices and lessons learned, and to plan for implementation of the next phase of projects in advance of the June 2004 elections.
Media Development and Civic Education: To kick off the new media strategy, OTI cleared the first media grants which will enable Arman FM to expand their signal to five provinces – Ghazni, Kandahar, Nangarhar, Balkh, and Herat. USAID/OTI partner Internews submitted a revised scope of work and extension request to begin implementing its portion of the strategy, mainly, to expand FM signals throughout the country, build the capacity of media professionals, and carry out comprehensive monitoring of media messages to help ensure media programs are understood by the public.
USAID/OTI also inaugurated two new radio stations in February – community partner stations in Qara-bagh District in Kabul Province, and in Balkh city in Balkh Province. Over 500,000 listeners are ex-pected to benefit. OTI has now inaugurated eleven stations out of fourteen planned. The project also pro-vides radio programming and manages other central support services to give the stations a reasonable chance of sustainability.
USAID/OTI is also planning a training program that will form the foundation of an independent print and radio news agency. During the six month initial phase, the IWPR news agency will train eighty editors, reporters, researchers and translators, dispatch them to eight regional facilities where they will begin sending back daily reports for distribution to print, radio and television facilities that are continually in need of national news and information.
Capacity Building for the TISA and its Outreach to Afghan Citizens: Six grants were cleared in February, worth $678,594. In addition to supporting new media development projects, grants also provided support for technical advisors to the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) and Rehabilitation of the Kabul Center Post Office. The south and east of the country (where IOM-ATI’s Gardez and Kandahar offices are located) continue to be volatile and high-risk, which impacts IOM-ATI’s capacity to implement projects. IOM-ATI continues to support the development of national NGO’s and private national consultants to be involved in monitoring, evaluation, and community outreach with training based on operating methodologies for work in insecure environments.
Gender Mainstreaming and Promotion of Women's Participation in Political Processes: Under the gender-specific funding received by USAID/OTI in 2003, and implemented by IOM-ATI, thirty-nine projects worth a total $2,260,288 have been completed or are on-going. To better coordinate project planning with the Afghan government and international partners, IOM-ATI staff have participated in monthly meetings chaired by Minister of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) Sorabi, and attended by Relief International (RI), the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), USAID, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), and other donor representatives from Germany (GTZ), Japan (JICA) and Belgium. RI and IOM provided updates on construction; IOM emphasized the need for the land title prior to the start of construction. IOM-ATI recently received land titles for sites identified for the building of provincial women’s centers in Farah and Badghis provinces. The MoWA Minister requested that IOM work together with provincial Departments of Women’s Affairs (DoWA) to secure necessary land titling for other centers.
B. Grant Activity Summary – USAID/OTI Afghanistan
USAID/OTI Summary of Cleared and Completed Activities Since Program Start-Up in October 2001
| Civil Society Organization Support |
12 |
$960,356 |
| Community Impact Activities |
295 |
$12,294,204 |
| Conflict Management |
6 |
$193,338 |
| Election Processes |
5 |
$3,222,839 |
| Justice/Human Rights |
8 |
$889,300 |
| Media |
50 |
$6,980,834 |
| Transparency/Good Governance |
109 |
$6,739,728 |
| TOTAL |
485 |
$31,190,599 |
USAID/OTI Activities Cleared in February 2004
| MRRD, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development |
Salaries for Nine MRRD Advisors in Kabul, Jan-Mar 2004 |
9 Advisors, 2,000 Ministry Employees, and the Afghan Public |
Kabul |
| MRRD, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development |
Salaries for Nine MRRD Advisors in Kabul, April - June 2004 |
9 Advisors, 2,000 Ministry Employees, and the Afghan Public |
Kabul |
| MPT, Ministry of Post and Telecommunications |
Rehabilitation of Kabul Center Post Office Building – Phase II |
300,000 residents of Kabul province, and 5,000 benefiting who live in surrounding provinces |
Kabul |
| Afghans for Afghans |
Support to Enable Programming in Insecure Regions of Afghanistan |
Capacity support for NGO to assist USAID program |
Ghazni, Logar, Nuristan, Parwan, Wardak |
| Arman FM |
Expansion of Arman FM Independent Radio signal to 5 provinces |
Radio listeners in the 5 provinces |
Balkh, Ghazni, Herat, Kandahar, Nangarhar |
| PUL Organization |
Judicial Commission TV interview, translation costs of program |
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Kabul |
C. Indicators of Success
Rural women are empowered to participate in upcoming elections. The registration process for the upcoming elections in Afghanistan is in progress. However, it has been particularly difficult to get women from the rural areas to register. In a male-dominated society, most rural women have not been able to participate in public debates or even leave their homes. Political empowerment for women is crucial to ensure that they can participate in the upcoming elections.
Many Afghan women, especially in the rural areas, believe that only men are entitled to vote in the future elections of Afghanistan. USAID’s programs are helping to change that with a grant to the local NGO Cooperation Center for Afghanistan (CCA). CCA is conducting 40 workshops and 240 discussion circles in rural areas in the northern and central parts of Afghanistan. So far, 7,000 people have benefited from this initiative.
One participant in a discussion circle in Baghlan explained to the group how she saw her attendance, “Many women from my village weren’t able to participate today,” she said. “I see myself as their representative. When I go home, I will explain to them what I have learned, so when the elections registration team comes to our village, we can all go and register together.” According to the director of the Department of Women’s Affairs in Baghlan province, many women expect to register to vote when the registration teams to come to their area.
USAID/OTI’s Radio Program Distribution Network Begins Daily Distributions Throughout Afghanistan. In February, the USAID-funded Tanin news distribution network progressed from weekly to daily distribution of radio programs. Tanin (“Echo” in Dari), is a joint initiative between USAID implementing partners Internews and Aïna. Tanin provides radio programs on CD to 35 stations in 25 prov-inces throughout Afghanistan. With USAID funding, Tanin’s network of drivers has been distributing CDs for over a year and is the only distribution network of its kind in the country. Tanin distributes twenty-nine radio programs, including the popular Children's City (Shahrak Atfal) show.
Also in February, Tanin Network distributed complete audio transcripts of Afghanistan’s new Constitu-tion. These recordings of the constitution verbatim, in both Dari and Pashto, were distributed to thirty-one stations in twenty-five provinces, as well as to other media outlets throughout the country.
Habibullah Haqbin, Secretary for Badghis Local Radio, said their radio station broadcast 10 Tanin programs during one week, including the World Women’s Day special program. Hagbin said “We want to express our appreciation to Tanin.”
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Stone Paving Pilot Program. In Maimana, OTI is supporting a stone-paving project that teaches ingenuity, promotes women’s participation, and strengthens Afghan government – community interaction. Earlier this year, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios asked that USAID beginning looking at options for stone paving for secondary/tertiary roads in Afghanistan. Before the USAID directive, USAID-funded partner, IOM-ATI had already initiated a pilot program with stone paving in Maimana, Faryab province. In a grant that was intended for traditional graveling of ten streets in the city of Maimana, IOM worked with the community to stone pave three of the streets. The streets were in extremely poor condition due to lack of proper maintenance and a recent increase in heavy traffic and accidents. For eight months a year the streets were a sea of mud, creating serious traffic problems. Furthermore, the semi-permanent presence of a swamp in the center of town caused by the poor road conditions was considered the primary cause of malaria in the area. The local government requested USAID support through the IOM-ATI program in order to engage with and respond positively to com-munity needs.
Initially, the community was resistant to stone paving because they had no experience with it. However, after seeing the pilot project in Maimana, the local government, particularly the Governor, and the local representative of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) have all been extremely supportive and have requested that new street rehabilitation projects consider stone paving.
The pilot portion of the project cost about $8,100 (not including construction of drainage ditches). Ap-proximately 935 people were employed to shape, set, and compact 400 meters of stone-paved road on three streets. The entire project benefits the 180,000 residents of Maimana. The Road Maintenance Department estimated that daily traffic is 50-100 trucks, 100-150 vans and over 10,000 pedestrians.
Following the pilot program in Maimana, the Afghan community and government met and agreed that there could be labor involvement by women. It was agreed that women could be trained and employed in stone cutting, which would be 50% of the labor. Women will be participating in IOM-ATI’s next stone paving street rehabilitation project.
It may take longer than graveling or asphalting, but it’s more community-friendly because materials can all be obtained locally. In addition, the local government is usually able to provide the compactor for use after the stones are set. When compared to graveling, stone paving lasts longer and is easier to maintain. It also engages more local labor, which means more jobs in communities. For stone paving, an engineer must be on site to help select the stones. The engineer can also help communities to learn the difference between good and poor quality stones, a skill useful for roads and other building projects.
Mayor in Zabul Province attributes improved government-community relations in the area to USAID’s rapid implementation of rehabilitation activities. On February 26, the newly elected mayor of Qalat District of Zabul Province, Khdai Daad, came to the USAID/OTI-funded IOM-ATI office in Kandahar to talk about IOM-ATI activities being carried out in the province. Besides being appreciative of all the work done in his region, he also stated that people are now coming to the ministries and asking for help, which was not the case in the past. He reports that because of IOM-ATI’s care in bringing the government and communities together as activities are implemented, communities are now beginning to trust and collaborate with their government.
Inauguration of a canal rehabilitation in Takhar Province publicized on television for maximum impact. OTI funded the erection of eight gabion dikes and one sluiceway to protect Kori Khana canal's banks from the erosion caused by the Taluqan river and to assure the smooth running of the irrigation system. The support not only improved the lives of 5,350 people and their 4,000 hectares of land, but enabled the broader community to see the benefits of peace when the inauguration ceremony was broadcast on local television. Furthermore, the project was able to employ eight female workers for two months to net the gabion wire cages to hold the rocks together. “Now, the community is responsible of the project,” said Engineer Salem, Head of Takhar Irrigation Department. “During twenty-two years (of fighting) in Afghanistan, all our infrastructures have been destroyed. Now thanks to the peace brought by our new Government, we can reconstruct Afghanistan. It will take time, but together we will achieve it.”
Other community participation which consisted of cleaning the canal, digging the foundation, and back-filling the infrastructure, was organized and monitored by the Mirab – the community leader responsible for the water management of the canal.
NEXT STEPS/IMMEDIATE PRIORITIES
During the month of March 2004, USAID/OTI will:
- Continue implementation of the USAID media strategy
- Work with implementing partners on gearing programs toward elections
- Travel to Mazar and Kunduz to monitor programs
- Finalize OTI/Afghanistan strategy and Monitoring and Evaluation plan
For further information, please contact:
In Afghanistan: Christa Skerry, USAID/OTI/Afghanistan Country Representative, Tel: (93) 70-278-052 cskerry@usaid.gov
In Washington: Karma Lively, USAID/OTI/ANE Regional Team Leader, Tel: 202-712-5755 klively@usaid.gov
Visit the USAID/OTI website at: http://www.usaid.gov/ Key Word – “OTI”
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