Afghanistan programme
Related pages: Afghanistan country
profile | Afghanistan:
Development in Action
Background
Our aid programme to Afghanistan supports three of the Afghan Government’s own
objectives, as set out in their
 Interim
National Development Strategy (i-ANDS):
- Building effective state institutions;
- Improving economic management, and the effectiveness of aid to
Afghanistan; and
- Improving the livelihoods of rural people.
The best way to achieve these goals is by supporting Afghans to help themselves
– which is why 80% of our aid goes directly to the Government of Afghanistan.
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State Building
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Image courtesy Nick Danziger
DFID Afghanistan’s governance work aims to help the Government of
Afghanistan build a credible and legitimate state capable of delivering
basic services, such as education and health, to all citizens. This
involves building up governance structures at the national and local
levels.
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Key forms of support have included:
- providing international experts to to provide training and
help with policy development and reform of key institutions,
including the Office of the President;
- working with the Government to reform civil service pay and
grading, attract talented returnees back to Afghanistan to work
for the Government, and to ensure a reliable and transparent
allocation of finances from Ministries to provinces.
We are also supporting the Government to establish an
effective justice strategy to provide access to formal justice services
for the whole population, and exploring possibilities for community
based conflict resolution measures. |
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Economic Management
 Image courtesy Nick Danziger
Over
80% of our funding goes directly through Government Systems to help deliver
schools, teachers, hospitals, doctors and other services to benefit the Afghan
people. We are also helping the Government improve tax collection and spending,
to effectively support the growth of the Afghan economy and make Afghanistan
less dependent on aid. DFID has helped the Government meet its yearly target for
collecting taxes, increasing government revenue by about 30% per year. We have
also assisted the Government in promoting an environment where the private
sector can flourish and which encourages more foreign investment.
Rural Livelihoods
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Image courtesy Nick Danziger
Helping
find alternatives to growing and harvesting opium poppy is a central pillar of
the Afghan Government’s counter-narcotics strategy, which the UK is strongly
backing. The majority of this spending is put into the Afghan Government’s
National Priority Programmes for development, which include: |
- the
National
Solidarity Programme (NSP) which has established over 18,000 Community
Development Councils across Afghanistan to implement projects in
some of the most remote and poorest communities
-
Micro
Finance Investment Support Facility of Afghanistan (MISFA) which has issued over
£150 million worth of small loans to over 400,000 Afghans, to help Afghans
running small businesses. Over 70% of MISFA’s beneficiaries are women, amongst
the poorest in Afghanistan.
We have also given £18 million over three years to the National Rural Access Programme, which
has generated over 14.3 million days of labour. Around 9,700 km of rural roads
have been built or repaired, as well as schools, health clinics and water
schemes.
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Helmand Province
The United Kingdom is currently the lead nation of the Helmand Provincial
Reconstruction Team (PRT). DFID and the
FCO work together with the
MOD to
deliver the four strands of the
Joint UK Plan for Helmand: Security; Governance;
Social and Economic Development; and Counter-Narcotics.
Within the PRT, DFID is the lead UK Department on development matters and has
had a development advisor and programme manager in Helmand since April and July
2006, respectively. DFID has provided £7.2 million since April 2006 to support the
implementation of over 296 Quick Impact Projects that aim to provide and
immediate and visible benefits to the people of Helmand.
To further support the success of the Joint UK Plan for Helmand, DFID has
launched a three-year, £30 million, agriculture and rural development programme to fund the
implementation of Afghan National Priority Programmes (NPP) through the
Afghan
Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. The initial phase of the
programme will provide access to clean drinking water for 175,000 people as well
as rehabilitate infrastructure including roads and irrigation canals.
For more detailed facts and figures on progress in Helmand see
Helmand Agriculture and Rural Development
Programme and 'Fighting
poverty is key for future of Helmand'.
Last updated: 19 March 2008
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