Commitment for
change
Strategic plan 2014-2017
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan
Contents
Introduction3
Purpose of the strategic plan3
How the strategic plan was developed
3
Our vision & Mission4
Our Values5
Who we are and our History6
How we organised our work, 2010-2013
7
Building on past achievements8
The previous strategic plan, 2010-2013
8
Continuity with the past8
What’s new in the strategic plan
8
How we work and who we work with
10
Rights and Change in Afghanistan10
Gender Mainstreaming Approach11
Capacity development11
Service delivery12
Advocacy12
The environment in which we work
13
Afghanistan today – A brief overview
13
State capacities and the political system
13
Transition14
Swedish support to development in Afghanistan
15
Economic and Social Effects of Transition
15
Our institutional partners16
Our target groups17
Our development goals21
Our strategic priorities21
Our strategies22
1. The specific health needs of rural communities,
especially women, children and persons with disabilities22
2. Education for children and adults with diverse
abilities and backgrounds25
3. Rural livelihoods27
4. Community Governance29
5. Public and Political Commitment
31
Annex 1. Acronyms and abbreviations used
in the text33
Annex 2. Sources used in researching the Strategic PLan34
Annex 3: Results Framework36
Introduction
Purpose of the strategic plan
Millions of Afghans living in rural communities,
especially women, children and persons with disabilities,
live in poverty, deprived of many of their basic rights. This
strategic plan describes how we, Swedish Committee for
Afghanistan (SCA), will work towards addressing these
shortfalls over the four-year period, 2014-2017.
On the basis of a comprehensive understanding of the
contexts in which we work and of what is possible to
achieve, as well as what we ourselves do well, the plan
establishes ambitious objectives that represent significant
and tangible improvements in the lives of its target
groups. These are expressed in terms of the target groups’
access to services and to social and economic resources,
as well as the realisation of their right to participate in the
community and in economic life.
The purpose of the plan is to provide us with a clear
direction in all our work, both in Afghanistan and
Sweden, which will guide the organisation’s planning,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation. It outlines
broad, but complete sets of inter-dependent activities,
through which we will work towards achieving our
objectives.
Afghanistan remains racked by violent conflict, and
political and economic instability. The country’s future
is very uncertain and predicting the course of events over
the next few years is an impossible task. With this in mind,
the plan is intended to be a flexible tool, subject to revision
and adaptation, if and whenever changes in the context
necessitate a rethink of both objectives and strategies.
Taking into consideration also the distinct possibility that
an intensification of conflict could disrupt our ability to
operate at all, either in particular localities or throughout
the country more generally, a separate document has been
developed that sets out a series of principles to apply at
a time of emergency in reassessing and adjusting our
overall mode of operation in Afghanistan.
This strategic plan is a natural successor to the current
strategic plan which covers the period 2010-2013, but
the development of it is also coordinated closely with
our continuous process of organisational development,
internal learning and adaptation to both the Afghan and
international contexts in which it works. The strategy is
closely aligned with our revised organisational Policy,
approved by the Board in December 2012, which
establishes revised vision, mission, and values statements
and clarifies the principles and working practices of our
evolving rights-based approach (RBA) to development.
How the strategic plan was developed
The strategic plan is the result of an extensive, sixmonth participatory process drawing on the combined
insights, experiences and knowledge of staff, the board,
SCA members, target groups and other stakeholders. It is
founded in a comprehensive predictive context analysis
carried out by ten programme and policy teams by means
of detailed desk studies and consultations with a wide
range of stakeholders including, project users and target
groups, field staff, government representatives from
district to central ministry level, donor organisations, and
international and national NGO partners and associates.
The results of an internal review of our performance over
the period 2010-2013 have supplemented those of eleven
external programme and organisational evaluations
and studies conducted over 2011-2012. SCA’s further
development needs for organisational capacity were
assessed through a discussion-based internal review that
coordinated input from management and all units.
The broad outlines and key features of the strategic plan
were generated by four planning workshops carried
out in Afghanistan, bringing together over 50 senior
programme, project and support staff from all of our
11 offices (Afghanistan and Sweden), and a further five
workshops in Sweden with staff, the board and SCA
members. Various working groups refined the workshop
results and developed the plan’s detailed content,
including the strategic results framework. Drafts were
circulated among staff and the board for further refinement
and feedback which was combined and incorporated into
the final strategic plan document. The strategic plan was
formally adopted by the board on September 8, 2013.
3
Our Vision
and
Mission
Our Vision is | an Afghanistan free from poverty, violence and discrimination, where human
rights are respected and all live in dignity, enjoy equal opportunity and social justice.
Our Mission is | to empower individuals, communities and local organizations, primarily in rural
areas and with particular focus on women, girls, boys and vulnerable groups such as persons with
disabilities, so that they may participate fully in society and influence their own development. SCA
will achieve this by working closely with communities, local and national civil society organizations
and relevant levels of government, and by combining capacity development, advocacy and service
provision.
SCA is characterized by:
Respect for the Afghan people´s right to self determination
Equal treatment of people regardless of religion, gender or ethnicity
Knowledge and understanding of culture and religion in Afghanistan, as well as respect for the
importance that cultural and religious values have in people´s lives
Compliance with universal human rights
4
Photo | Kajsa Johansson
Our Values
All our work is based in
the following values:
Responsiveness | We work in
respectful cooperation with target groups
to address their needs and legitimate
demands with an emphasis on local
ownership.
Impartiality | While upholding
the duty to be inclusive and non-discriminatory in our approach, we do not
take sides in conflict and do not support
specific factions or parties representing
various interests in society.
Equality | We promote equal opportunities and facilitate equal access
to resources for all citizens, including
women, girls, boys and persons with
disabilities.
Social Justice | We strive to be
fair to all with whom we work. While
working to affirm the rights of all individuals, we recognise that differences
in gender, individual capabilities and
identities give rise to varied needs and
interests.
Integrity | We are true to our mission, maintaining honesty and transparency in all of what we do and say, upholding a spirit of openness and sharing
with stakeholders, while always prepared
to be held to account for our actions.
Photo | Lisa Brunzell
5
Who
we are and our
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA)
is a membership-based, non-governmental organisation
which is founded on the principles of solidarity and
support on a people to people basis. It is dedicated solely
to the promotion of the development of Afghanistan
and its many communities. SCA was founded in 1980
in protest against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
The purpose was to support the Afghan people’s right to
self-determination and to raise public support for a Soviet
withdrawal from Afghanistan. In 1981, SCA began
raising funds for humanitarian aid. This was followed
by the first SCA aid intervention in 1982, consisting of
medical assistance carried out by Afghan health staff.
Later on, aid interventions within the areas of education,
disability and rural development were initiated. These
efforts expanded rapidly and have over the years evolved
from emergency and humanitarian aid to the present
development cooperation. Currently present in 17 of
Afghanistan’s 34 provinces and employing over 6,300
Afghan staff, SCA focuses the majority of its resources
on providing services and building the capacities of
the Afghan poor living in rural areas, particularly
women, children (both girls and boys) and persons with
disabilities.
In Sweden, SCA has developed a membership of over
4,000 that forms the basis for its continuing efforts
to strengthen solidarity between the Swedish and
European public and the Afghan people, by means
of information campaigns and fundraising activities.
Maintaining strong public support for Afghanistan is
integral to our advocacy and policy dialogue activities.
Peshawar, Pakistan, 1987 | Staffan
Forsell hands over a ambulance to
the SCA staff at the Peshawar office.
The funds were raised in Sweden,
many well known artists participated.
6
Photo | Veronica Nyman
History
The establishment in 2001 of an internationally recognised
government with ambitions to rehabilitate the country
and bring development to all its citizens demanded from
SCA a new approach to delivering aid to Afghanistan,
focused on increasing cooperation with the State’s
emerging institutions. Since then, we have aligned our
programmes with Afghan national development policies
and strategies, where they have not been in contradiction
with SCA policy. We have handed over the majority of
SCA supported schools and health clinics to the Ministries
of Education and Public Health and reoriented many of
our service provision activities in order to fill gaps in
government-run services and to cover isolated rural areas
beyond the reach of the Afghan government. We have
also assisted the government by entering into contract
partnerships for the provision of basic services to rural
populations and included capacity development activities
in its programmes with the aim of strengthening the
government’s capability to manage and deliver services.
The practical adjustments made to programme delivery
have gone hand in hand with our on-going evolution from
a humanitarian and mainly service delivery-oriented
organisation into a developmental NGO with the primary
goal of contributing to longer-term, sustainable poverty
reduction through the empowerment of our key target
groups. In order to implement this transformation in
practice, the previous strategic plan (2010-2013) marked
a shift in the organisation from activity-based to resultsbased management (RBM), and from needs-based to
rights-based programming, which was to be implemented
according to the three means: service delivery, capacity
development, and advocacy.
How
we organised our
work,
2010-2013
Over the period 2010-2013, we have planned and
implemented the greater part of our work in Afghanistan
within the framework of four sector-based programmes,
each of which has been more or less self-sufficient in
terms of the capacities and technical knowledge required
to implement their separate programme strategies and
project plans.
The Education Programme focuses on increasing
access to quality education. It: 1. Provides communitybased education in rural communities, including nomad
communities, and also runs girls annexes in villages
where there are no girls schools; 2. Gives coaching
classes to older girls and women who have dropped out
of the education system; 3 Supports Model Schools to
achieve quality improvements; 4. Runs teacher training
schools; and 5 Extends capacity development support to
district and provincial education authorities.
Rehabilitation of Afghans with Disabilities
(RAD) divides its work into five components according
to the five areas of the Community-Based Rehabilitation
methodology: 1. Community mobilisation and advocacy
for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in community
development; 2. Employment support to persons with
disabilities though vocational training and small loans;
3. Special and Inclusive Education projects; 4. Physical
rehabilitation of persons with disabilities through
physiotherapy services and orthopaedic workshops;
and 5. Organisational capacity development support to
disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) and professional
associations.
The Health Programme’s principal activity is
the contracting of state health services, both in the
community (BPHS) and from provincial hospitals
(EPHS) in four provinces. It also runs a midwifery
school in Wardak province and a Community Nursing
School in Laghman province, both through the agency
of an implementing partner, Norwegian Afghanistan
Committee. It has provided significant organisational
development support and technical assistance to the
Afghan Midwives Association. It also provides literacy
and health education to mothers, and health education in
schools, mainly where the programme provides health
care services.
The Rural Development Programme works
towards community development by 1. Providing
organisational development support and technical
assistance to Community Development Councils
(CDCs) within the government’s National Solidarity
Programme (NSP) and elsewhere; 2. Running WASH
(water, sanitation and hygiene) projects; and 3) Providing
direct inputs into community infrastructure through its
Engineering Unit.
All four programmes are supported with technical training
and methodological guidance by our Civil Society and
Human Rights and Gender Units.
The Sweden Management Office 1. Disseminates
information on the situation in Afghanistan and SCA
development interventions; 2. Supports the SCA members
in carrying out awareness-raising events and involving
themself more fully in all our work; 3. Conducts policy
dialogue, makes contact and maintains close liaison with
donors in Sweden and Europe; 4. Carries out fundraising
in Sweden from the general public and a range of Swedish
groups and organisations; 5. Organises external events
and establishes cooperation with technical institutes and
civil society actors relevant to our Afghanistan activities;
6. Provides technical and administrative support to
our Afghanistan programmes. 7. Supports members,
local committees and the Board in their functions.
The SCA members are organised in local committees
and networks. They disseminate information, carry out
awareness raising events, convey SCA’s experience
of development cooperation and raise funds for SCA
work in Afghanistan. The Annual Meeting is the highest
deciding body of SCA.
7
Building
on past
achievements
The previous strategic plan, 2010-2013
Our previous strategic plan provided a roadmap for the
organisation based on the close alignment of our activities
with the Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS,
2008). The plan ensured that services in health and
education were delivered to our target groups in the rural
areas where we work, and that the supply of qualified
teachers and health professionals was significantly
increased. The introduction of more inclusive and rightsbased thinking to the planning process stimulated actions
which succeeded in gaining the attention of policy makers
towards significant minority interests. For instance, pilot
projects aimed at providing suitably adapted education
to Kuchi (nomad) children and in promoting Inclusive
Education for children with disabilities have led directly
to placing these issues in Afghan education policy for the
first time. Other pilot activities, such as engaging women
in the production of concrete slabs within our Water and
Sanitation interventions, and projects for mobilizing
and capacitating female carpet weavers within Turkmen
communities, have provided us with insights for rightsbased programming and sustainable results.
Recognising the important role of civil society
organisations (CSOs) in promoting the rights of our target
groups, the strategic plan led to a limited civil society
support programme that has given us valuable experience
in fund management and in the delivery of support for
organisational development upon which this strategic
plan builds.
Sustained advocacy at the national level, mainly in
support of the rights of persons with disabilities has
borne encouraging fruits. Physical rehabilitation has been
included within Afghanistan’s health policy and structures
and we have successfully negotiated the handing over
of many of our physiotherapy clinics to the Ministry of
Public Health. At the same time, SCA has contributed
to motivating the Government of Afghanistan (GoA) to
ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (UNCRPD).
In Sweden, our activities have contributed to the Swedish
government’s continuing commitment to the development
of Afghanistan, and have also drawn attention to the
importance of maintaining a rights-based approach to
donor policy. A collaboration with the Swedish NGOs
Kvinna till Kvinna and Operation 1325 in 2012 led to
the publication of a major study, Missing the Target, on
Sweden’s responsibilities to women, peace and security
under UNSCR 1325.
However, progress toward achieving our mission to
empower our target groups over the period 20108
2013 has been less than desired, partially due to an
insufficient understanding and concentration of resources
and activities within our programmes on capacity
development and advocacy. In programme activities,
capacity development has broadly translated into training
and measures to enhance the competencies of individuals.
Advocacy has not been carried out with sufficient strategic
focus aimed at achieving significant policy outcomes that
impact the lives of our target groups.
The previous strategic plan did, however, serve to draw
attention inside the organisation to certain methodological
shortfalls. Consequently we have over the last two years
initiated an organisation-wide process of developing a
deeper understanding of a rights-based approach. This
includes the identification of a fuller range of capacity
development and advocacy methods and tools to
assist us in strengthening target groups and raising the
accountability and responsiveness of government and
other duty-bearers. The importance of civil society as
an arena for the organised collective action of our target
groups has been recognised more fully, and our staff
has done much to identify ways of partnering with civil
society organisations and also providing more relevant
and better adapted support to assist their organisational
development.
Continuity with the past
The strategic plan 2014-2017 retains our previous focus
on rural communities, women, children, and persons with
disabilities. It also builds upon our previous successes
and competencies in providing services in areas where
the GoA continues to face serious capacity shortfalls.
Many of the services upon which we have built our
reputation, such as, community-based education (CBE),
teacher training, and the training of midwives and nurses
will remain core programme activities for the duration of
the strategic plan.
What’s new in the strategic plan?
The plan also marks a point of departure for us as it
represents, for the first time, a coherent application of
our RBA to the planning, implementation, monitoring
and evaluation of all our programme activities.
Recognising that human rights are both universal and
inter-dependent, the strategies have been developed
in a holistic way with objectives focusing on positive
change for our target groups that require inputs from
all programmes and cross cutting units. This ambition
also extends to the work carried out in Sweden, so that
each strategy involves greater cooperation with, and an
increased level of input from, SMO and our members.
In proposing a more even application of SCA’s three
means of activity – service delivery, capacity development
and advocacy – to everything we do, and by prescribing a
new emphasis on cooperation, complementarity, and local
ownership, we firmly establish our role as a facilitator and
catalyst of change, rather than purely a deliverer of aid.
On the basis of careful consultation with our target groups
in the community regarding their main development
concerns, we have concluded that SCA should continue
in the areas of health and education. We have identified
livelihoods and community governance as new areas of
primary focus, in addition to those of education and health
where we already have well-established programmes.
We have already developed considerable experience and
expertise in key aspects of these two focus areas through
our RAD and Rural Development (RD) programmes,
with RAD providing proven employment support through
vocational training and micro loans, and RD facilitating
the development of over 1,000 CDCs through the NSP
and the Sida-funded Northern Rural Project. However,
this work will mean new demands in terms of working
methods, capacities, implementing partners and finance,
so it is proposed to introduce both the livelihoods and
community governance strategies as pilots in limited
and carefully selected geographical locations, so as to
complement and enhance our other programmes.
The implication of our strategic orientation toward
strengthened capacity development and advocacy
is that civil society, as an arena for giving a voice
and organisational strength to our target groups,
will increasingly become the principal focus of our
programmes. With an emphasis on community-based
organisations (CBOs), we will pursue a strategy of
working with CSOs of all types through the principle
of partnership, based upon mutually agreed objectives,
participation and local ownership.
The Strategic Plan period will see some of our current
programme components being phased out. This includes
Model Schools, where we will instead extend more
limited support toward CBE Hub Schools; toward Girls
Annexes, to be upgraded to formal schools or classified as
CBE schools that may obtain support from either Ministry
of Education or NGOs including SCA; and toward
Physiotherapy Clinics, to be handed over gradually and
responsibly to state-contracted health actors with the
ambition to not compromise quality.
Greater resources will be dedicated to capacity
development of target groups in the community, their
organisational expressions within civil society and
government institutions at sub-national levels. We will
focus increasingly on assisting target groups to develop
their own organisations through which they can identify
and implement solutions to their development problems.
While building structures for sub-national administration
is not a task of SCA, we will support existing institutions
in order to strengthen the systems for development
planning and delivery of services.
We will only achieve our objectives if there is broadbased acceptance and backing for the rights of our
target groups, translated into appropriately supportive
policy measures and a change in how resources are
distributed. We are therefore committed to dedicating
resources to issue-based advocacy and policy dialogue.
We will support more local-level advocacy efforts that
pursue improvements for our target groups by providing
resources and support to NGOs and their networks, as
well as assisting community-based organizations to
form networks and gain access to district and provincial
governments. We will also strengthen our advocacy
activities at both the national and international levels,
working in closer cooperation with like-minded NGO
partners and networks, in order to influence the GoA and
the donor community.
In order to lend our advocacy efforts a credible base
of evidence, we will dedicate resources to undertaking
relevant research, the results of which will be made
available publicly and feed into our further programming.
SCA as a catalyst for change
Nasira started in SCA’s school for heraring imparied children in Mazare-Sharif in 2001. With the technical support of SCA she and a group of
others established the first association for hearing imparied persons in
northen Afghanistan during 2013.
“Few hearing imparied persons have a job and they face many problems
in their everyday life. There is a lack of awareness in society”, she says.
Photo | Erik Halkjaer
9
How
we work and who we
work with
Rights and Change in Afghanistan To achieve changes in the lives of ordinary Afghans so
that they can live free from poverty, violence and discrimination, it is not enough to impose a law prescribing
social justice, nor is it sufficient to provide a benefit to
meet an immediate need. SCA views poverty as a result
of denied human rights. This implies that marginalisation
and disempowerment, rather than simply lack of resources, are seen as causes of poverty. To give the target groups
greater opportunity to influence their own development,
changes are required in how power, resources and ideas
are created and distributed.
SCA’s Rights Based Approach provides both a conceptual framework and suggests a set of practical principles
to abide by in everything we do. By recognizing the
rights of the target groups and individuals as rights holders, with freedom and responsibility to claim and exercise their rights, RBA encourages community members
to become active agents of their own development and
primary drivers of development change in their areas.
SCA’s principle role is that of a facilitator, helping the
rights holders develop the will and ability (knowledge,
skills and confidence) to demand and claim their rights,
and to hold governments, social institutions, donors, the
community and other duty-bearers to account.
SCA’s mission of empowerment for its target groups requires that the participation of individuals and communities is strengthened in all interventions, bringing them
The tenets of Islam hold that change is
an integral part of life, essential to the
progressive development and wellbeing of all humans, leading to a life in
dignity for all.
Photo | Lisa Brunzell
10
into the planning process, and challenging and supporting
them to define their own vision of the future, set their
own objectives, develop and carry out their own projects, and undertake their own advocacy. Establishing
local ownership is a key objective of everything we do.
In Afghanistan, conservative and communal forms of
social organisation means that stimulating demand for
change and mobilising the poor to claim what they are
entitled to, particularly when it is based on concepts of
individual human rights, may be met with resistance.
Meanwhile, we are convinced that strong support for
progressive change can be found and developed within
the context of the Islamic worldview which frames all
aspects of life in Afghanistan.
The tenets of Islam hold that change is an integral part of
life, essential to the progressive development and wellbeing of all humans, leading to a life in dignity for all. In
the Quran and the teachings of the Holy Prophet (PBUH),
helping the less privileged is underlined. The fundamental precepts of Islam are aimed at reducing social and economic injustice.
We regard the principles of universal human rights as crucial for social and economic development. This resonates
well with Islamic thought, where the Amir – the person
who holds power and authority – has the obligation to ensure the fulfilment of the people’s rights. Zakat, the fourth
pillar of Islam, is an obligation of the wealthy toward the
poor. Rather than a form of charity for which the receiver
should show gratitude, Zakat is the obligation to extend
to the poor what is theirs by right. It embodies the concept
of accountability for one’s actions and instils a sense of
duty on all in society towards everyone else, including
those in the family and surrounding community. Participation and inclusion are also mandatory principles in Islam, articulated in the Holy Quran by means of calls to
shura, or consultation that are binding on all.
In order to achieve the change we seek it is important to
strengthen the knowledge and understanding of the rights
and the corresponding duties and responsibilities in the
communities we assist as well as among the powerful and
within institutions. Access for all to education, which has
always been a priority area for SCA, is paramount in this
context, as it strengthens the ability of citizens to increasingly become knowledgeable and active rights claimers.
We also see strengthened understanding of rights within
the specific Afghan context as something emanating out
of close cooperation and dialogue with religious scholars, community elders, local government authorities and
community-based structures and organisations, such as
community development councils (CDCs), NGOs, informal groups and traditional shuras.
Capacity development
Within our RBA, capacity development becomes the
principal focus of all our programmes. Capacity development is understood to mean any intervention to assist an
individual, organisation, institution or sector in order to
raise its performance and achieve its objectives.
We undertake capacity development with the following
target groups by:
•
Assisting communities and their representative bodies (such as Community Development Councils and
shuras) to organise and mobilise around issues of
importance to them, in order to facilitate local ownership of, and participation in the planning, management and implementation of community development projects;
•
Working with civil society, including communitybased organisations, registered NGOs and civil society networks to strengthen local and national advocacy;
•
Facilitating the organisational development of civil
society organisations, including community-based
organisations, professional associations and local
(and national) NGOs so that they may better fulfil
their missions to represent their members, advocate,
provide services, or carry out self-help activities;
Gender Mainstreaming Approach
Equal opportunities, participation, access to resources
and decision making, are prerequisites for development.
Development in general relies on the utilisation of experiences, skills and contribution from both women and men.
Given that women and girls in Afghanistan face invisibility and have little access to and control over resources, it
cannot be assumed that women and men will have equal
opportunities to, or will participate and benefit equally
from, development inputs. A gender lens will ensure that
interventions do not unintentionally increase prevailing
discrimination.
SCA promotes the long-term objective of gender equality
in Afghanistan, viewing it as a result of both the struggle
for women’s rights as well as an overall societal development. SCA will make conscious efforts to strengthen the
voice and organisational capacities of women, internally
among staff as well as throughout our development interventions. We will ensure that all stages of the programme
cycle adequately recognise prevailing gender discrimination and strategize around it. All programming will enforce both RBA and gender mainstreaming, which are
seen as complementary and not competing approaches.
We will also support duty-bearers so that they can better
fulfil their obligations and duties by:
•
Working with government institutions, particularly
at the provincial and district levels, to help build the
competencies of their staff, to facilitate greater communication and dialogue with communities, and to
develop responsive policies and strategies;
•
Supporting service providers, including government
and community-owned institutions, SCA facilities,
and civil society organisations and their staff with
technical input and opportunities for practical learning, as well as expertise in developing effective management and administrative systems, in order to raise
the availability and quality of services to the community;
•
Involving communities and individuals in the community (such as parents, teachers, health workers,
elected representatives and government appointees,
religious leaders, and elders) in the planning and
monitoring of our activities, informing them of their
obligations, and assisting them in developing new
ways (through dialogue, participatory problem-solving and facilitation) of observing their obligations;
•
Participating in policy dialogue and contributing
Three strategic means
The above principles are brought together into coherent
rights-based programmes, based upon the three strategic
means: capacity development, service delivery and
advocacy. These are seen as interdependent methods
that are essential for effective results as they jointly address the full development spectrum of access, quality,
system building, sustainability and policy development.
11
to the development of responsive sectorial strategy
by engaging with national ministries and provincial
directorates, either as part of broad multi-actor networks and coalitions, or by means of regular bi-lateral communication.
Service delivery
Within the current political and socio-economic context
of Afghanistan – typified by the overall paucity of institutional and financial capacity at all levels of government,
the fragmented and poorly operating system of governance in the country, and the continuing insecurity and
armed conflict – service delivery by external agencies
will remain vital in order to guarantee access to reliable
essential services for the foreseeable future.
With continued service delivery within our strategic programme, we not only compensate for the capacity shortfalls of the State and other duty-bearers, but also contribute to platforms upon which capacity building can take
place, open grounds for testing innovations, and gain experience which enriches and provides evidence for advocacy work. On the basis of research involving the participation of our target groups, as well as the identification of
gaps within government policies and strategies, we will
continue to develop and pilot new models of service delivery. The ultimate aim of these pilot projects will be to
integrate successful approaches into government policy
and to transfer responsibility for these services to state
institutions.
In order to contribute to the considerable task of building
Afghan institutional capacity, all of our service delivery
will be fully aligned with national and provincial development policies and will be planned, managed and implemented in cooperation with, and with the fullest possible participation of, the government and its institutions.
Service delivery is likely to continue to remain central
within SCA until phasing out in favour of locally owned
and managed services is considered feasible.
them to influence those in power as well as the design of
policies, structures and systems.
We view the strengthening of advocacy as both the natural complement to, and an important aspect of, our efforts
to develop the capacity of rights holders, i.e., our target
groups. Civil society in Afghanistan and civil society
organisations (ranging from informal community-based
organisations, to registered NGOs, and even international
NGOs) are viewed as the key agents for conducting advocacy, by reason of their potential to mobilise and represent public opinion, and thereby bring critical mass to
bear upon specific issues.
In order to contribute to the achievement of our outcomes,
we will promote advocacy in four ways:
•
We will make strengthening the capabilities of local
NGOs and community-based partners, to advocate
by themselves, one of the primary objectives in all
our capacity development work. In this way, our target groups will be empowered to influence relevant
duty-bearers in the community and local public administration to fulfil their responsibility to safeguard
access to resources for all, including women, girls
and boys, persons with disability and any other marginalised or discriminated groups;
•
We will combine forces with communities, community-based NGOs, and local and national NGOs to
advocate with its target groups, in order to establish
more favourable legislation and government policy
in the fields of education, health, women’s and children’s rights and social support to persons with disabilities and community development;
•
Whether on our own, or within broad-based coalitions and networks of international and national
NGOs, we will advocate for a more efficient development-aid environment in Afghanistan. We will
attempt to obtain favourable donor policies and the
continuance of adequate funding of development activities in Afghanistan, as well as to ensure that the
Afghan government puts the rights of Afghanistan’s
poor and marginalised, especially women, children
and persons with disabilities, at the centre of its development policy and its strategic budgeting choices;
•
We will commission research on rights-based issues
in Afghanistan to provide advocacy efforts and input
into policy development based on firm evidence.
Advocacy
To give our target groups a greater opportunity to influence their own development, SCA shall support and
strengthen their voices in order to make it possible for
Engineer Zahid tests the water in a villiage in Logar.
12
Photo | SCA
The
environment in which
we work
Afghanistan today – a brief overview
Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan
has had mixed success in reducing poverty, stimulating
development and establishing the basis for a well-functioning, modern state. Beginning from a very low starting
point, and largely driven by international aid and military spending, the economy has experienced real growth,
which has significantly raised the standard of living of
many Afghans, particularly those living in urban areas.
A revitalised education system has increased access to
education to around 7.5 million children, of whom approximately one third are girls. This represents a more
than seven-fold increase from 2001. The average child
in Afghanistan can now expect to receive 9.1 years of
schooling during his or her lifetime, as opposed to only
2.2 in 2000.
The establishment of a free basic health service covering
most of the country has contributed greatly to improved
health indicators. Access to basic healthcare has increased
from 8% in 2001 to 57% today and infant mortality has
been decreased from 165 deaths in 2003 to 77 deaths per
1000 live births in 2010. 1
Constitutional guarantees for the respect of human rights,
backed up by a growing body of national legislation and
the formal establishment of democratic institutions at all
levels of society have for the first time provided the prospect of real opportunities for greater participation in public and community life, particularly for women and those
from ethnic minorities. A diverse and largely free media
has developed.
On the other hand, after 30 years of conflict and destruction, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries
in the world, with a per capita GDP of only US$528
(2010/11). Socially and economically it is a deeply unequal and divisive society, subject to marked geographical
differences in wealth distribution and access to resources,
challenged by systemic discrimination against vulnerable
groups, particularly women and girls, and riven by ethnic
and tribal rivalries.
On key development indicators it lags behind many other low income countries and all of its central and south
Asian neighbours. Life expectancy, though significantly
improved, stands at around 49 years, while more than a
third of the population lives below the poverty line. Less
than half the population has access to safe drinking water and a little over a third has access to adequate sanitation. Approximately 11 million adults, comprising 39%
of men and just 12% of women, can read and write. One
in ten children will die before their fifth birthday, while
one in 11 women will die due to complications during
pregnancy or childbirth.
Ten years of formal democracy has not translated into
a functioning system of party politics or a more general
‘culture of democracy.’ There is widespread dissatisfaction with a centralised state unable to provide effective
governance. High levels of corruption permeating all
public institutions is a serious impediment to the rule of
law, and Afghanistan is ranked equal bottom with Somalia and North Korea out of the 176 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index for
2012.
State capacities and the political system
The Afghan state faces many serious challenges. The last
ten years has not resulted in a viable state with a stable
political process and strong institutions of governance.
The constitution of 2004, mirroring the monarchist constitution of 1964, formally confers huge powers to the
President and blurs the lines of authority between the
executive, legislative and judiciary. A highly centralised
set of authoritarian institutions, a weak system of checks
and balances, and lack of effective state structures in the
provinces and beyond, have proved inadequate in extending services, providing security to, and integrating, Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic and tribal populations beyond
the larger cities.
Based on an electoral process widely perceived to be
fraudulent, combined with widespread corruption and the
influence of ethnic and regional rivalries, the state and the
present government possess low levels of legitimacy in
the country. This applies in particular in rural areas where
government security forces are often unable to operate effectively, and where the state administration lacks the capacity to deliver essential services. It is in these areas that
armed opposition groups are able to sway communities.
1
The data presented in this section are taken from a wide variety of recent studies (2010-2013), although many of these recycle data originally
gathered earlier. All data concerning Afghanistan should be treated with extreme caution owing to the inability of researchers to verify basic
demographic statistics. Current estimates of the total Afghan population in the years 2011 to 2013 vary from between around 25 million to over
35 million.
A full list of analytical reports providing the data for the strategic plan can be found in annex 2.
13
Transition
Afghanistan is currently undergoing three crucial interlinked processes of transition, whose outcomes will shape
the environment in which we will work over the period
of this strategic plan and will influence heavily both the
progress we make towards our strategic objectives and
the progress Afghanistan itself makes towards sustainable peace and development.
Transition of security
The phased transfer of responsibility for the country’s security from international forces to ANSF was formally
completed in early summer 2013. Troop withdrawal by
both the US and NATO countries has been accelerated
as they seek a swift exit from the country. However, assessments of the transition process so far suggest that the
ANSF are not fully prepared in most places to carry out
their new role. They are also ill-equipped to tackle armed
opposition groups (AOGs) without the close support of
NATO air power and US Special Forces.
In many areas, NATO withdrawal has resulted in a rapid
and severe deterioration of the security situation as AOGs
have moved in to fill a security vacuum. However, the
international community is planning to continue financing ANSF operations post-2014, which is a prerequisite
for the government’s ability to uphold a reasonable level
of security.
It is difficult to predict the overall effect of the transition process regarding conditions on the ground for local
populations and our operations. It is possible that AOGs
might take effective control of some areas, and that informally negotiated ceasefires between ANSF and AOGs
2013 sees the coming into force of a
new aid coordination framework for
Afghanistan, based upon agreements
reached by the GoA and donors at the
Tokyo Conference in July 2012.
Photo | Lisa Brunzell
14
will lead to deadlock and a stabilisation, or even a reduction of armed conflict. Under these conditions, SCA
would become dependent on the sanction of whichever
AOG is in control locally to operate, something which
might potentially be conditional on giving up on our
more progressive objectives vis-à-vis gender, women’s
empowerment, and human rights more generally.
Wherever ANSF does not control territory there is
likely to be a sharp rise in criminality, affecting local populations and SCA field workers. In many districts security will be provided by AOGs or local militia that support, but are independent of, the government.
Political transition
Running alongside the transition of security, and largely
initiated by the international community at the London
conference in January 2010 in the hope of gaining a political settlement to ease its military exit, have been three
loosely connected processes toward establishing peace
and reconciliation. At the local level the Afghan government, with technical support from UNDP, is implementing the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Programme
(APRP), which targets rank and file members of AOGs,
seeking to reintegrate them into the community. Difficulties in releasing sufficient funds to provide employment
opportunities for those giving up their arms have limited
the success of the programme. The APRP is supervised by
the presidentially appointed High Peace Council, whose
main role is to work with insurgent leaders to build wider
and higher-level support for the process. The Council,
intended as a neutral and independent multi-stakeholder
body, has functioned poorly as its membership serves the
interests of selected political and military interests.
Efforts have been made by the US and Afghan government to negotiate directly with Taliban leadership both
with and without inclusion of their Pakistani backers.
These efforts have raised concerns among many, including civil society and women that not only is the process
determined by the interests of the US over those of Afghanistan, but that their human rights and freedoms will
be traded away in any potential deal. However, the process not only excludes most of the parties to the conflict,
including other armed opposition groups, it is also not
supported by the powerful leaders in the former United
Front (also known as the Northern Alliance). No sustainable peace deal appears likely in 2013.
Presidential and provincial elections are scheduled to
take place in April 2014, followed by parliamentary
elections in 2015. A well-run, reasonably inclusive and
corruption-free process leading to a smooth transition
of power might enhance state legitimacy and could be
the opportunity needed to advance reconciliation of key
political and associated paramilitary factions. However,
there is a real risk that elections will be a tipping point
toward greater political instability and conflict. Based on
the experience of the last elections, the results and their
legality are likely to be the subject of long-running disputes between the executive, legislative, and judiciary,
further weakening governance and the rule of law and
adding fuel to internal and insurgent-led violence.
Transition of aid coordination
2013 sees the coming into force of a new aid coordination framework for Afghanistan, based upon agreements
reached by the GoA and donors at the Tokyo Conference in July 2012. The framework is intended to increase
the effectiveness of development aid in the period up to
the end of the security transition in 2014, but also looks
forward to Afghanistan’s development needs in the
succeeding ten years, the so-called Transformation Decade, 2015-2024.
In support of the Framework, donors pledged a total of
US$4 billion/year in development aid to Afghanistan
over the period 2012-2015. This represents a 50% cut in
development aid since 2010. During 2011-2012 there has
been a significant scaling down of many NGO-delivered
development projects, but more importantly the continued shortfall in development aid over the period to 2015
is likely to see key NPPs dealing with the promotion of
human and women’s rights, skills training and institutional capacity building not receiving adequate support.
Swedish support to development in
Afghanistan
At the Tokyo conference in July 2012, the Swedish government was alone among the major donor nations in
making a firm long-term commitment to support development in Afghanistan, pledging a total of 8.5 billion SEK
(approx. US$1.2 billion) for the Transformation Decade,
Key features of the aid coordination
framework:
A results-oriented development strategy, set out in 22 sector National Priority Plans (NPPs), based on the existing
ANDS and the MDGs.
A Mutual Accountability Framework (TMAF) – a set of
principles and conditions applying to both GoA and donors
to increase the effectiveness of international aid and to
strengthen Afghan governance. The TMAF’s key points
are:
•­Donors agreed to place 50% of all funding ‘on-budget’
(through the GoA), and align 80% of all aid with the
NPPs.
•
GoA made firm commitments to conduct free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections;
strengthen the rule of law, including upholding
human rights, with particular regard to women’s rights;
to fight corruption; improve public finance
management and devolve finance and authority to the
provinces.
An Aid Management Policy (AMP), a comprehensive,
streamlined system for coordinating between donors and
the GoA, led by the Ministry of Finance, to ensure the commitments of the TMAF are observed.
2015-2024. This represents a considerable increase compared to current Swedish assistance at a time when most
other donors are predicting a reduced commitment after
the period 2015 – 2017.
Sweden will adopt a new results strategy for the period
from 2015, which will focus on the five thematic areas
of empowerment, education, employment, enterprise and
economic integration.
Sweden’s 10-year commitment and the relatively high
profile that Afghanistan continues to command in the
public eye is opening up the possibility of the engagement in Afghanistan of a variety of Swedish development NGOs other than the small number already active in the country alongside SCA. This is seen by
SCA as an opportunity to forge partnerships for complementary actions and joint advocacy campaigns.
Economic and Social Effects of Transition
The transition of both security and aid coordination
entails a huge increase in government expenditure, especially with regard to operations and maintenance of
ANSF and other services. Donors are committed to cover
the gap through 2015, but thereafter, if aid continues to
fall as expected, the government may well have to divert large sums from the civilian budget to maintain the
ANSF, impacting heavily on essential services, such as
health and education.
Reductions in aid in the post-transition period, combined
with the exit of international troops, support services and
some NGOs will have a negative impact on the economy.
15
A slowing of growth to around 6% per year, moderated by
only gradual reductions in aid, would result in very limited progress being made in reducing poverty. Underemployment (currently estimated at 48%) would continue to
grow and rural livelihoods for very many would become
increasingly insecure. Further reductions in growth, even
recessions, are quite possible if security and governance
continue to worsen, aid flows are reduced sharply, or the
government is unable to make serious inroads into corruption and also improve its ability to execute its budget.
All three scenarios are quite possible and their cumulative effect would be further income poverty for many, including greater hardship and food insecurity for millions,
especially the rural poor.
Our institutional partners
Government and public administration
Afghanistan has established a sound and appropriate legal framework to enable the equitable delivery of essential services, and to bring the benefits of development to
all. Citizens’ rights and social entitlements are enshrined
in the Constitution and are reinforced by Afghanistan’s
ratification of the major international human rights instruments and its continuing development of a body of supportive national law. On the other hand, the development
objectives and their targets, and the deliverables set out in
the NPPs are unachievable in the prescribed time frames.
The current levels of service provision are only sustainable in the shorter-term being as they are dependent on
international aid at present volumes and the agency of
NGO implementing partners.
The public administration in Afghanistan is low in capacity and highly centralised, with budgetary flows to the
provinces controlled by central line ministries. As such,
coordination of budgets at the provincial level is very difficult, and provincial administrators are stymied to make
development decisions according to local needs and demands.
Service delivery is formally provided by de-concentrated
units of line ministries situated at the provincial and district levels. However, decentralisation of human capacities, finance, and the authority necessary to plan, implement, and monitor local services effectively is extremely
limited. The quality and presence of services in provinces
and districts tends to decline in proportion to their distance from provincial centres and to higher levels of insecurity.
The delivery of development projects at the community
level has relied upon NSP, through the agency of CDCs.
The programme, although popular with communities and
widely regarded as being highly successful, bypasses local government, as it is under the central control of the
Ministry for Rehabilitation and Rural Development,
and makes coordination on district level difficult. This
weakness is well-documented and lessons are being addressed in proposed new structures for local governance.
16
Civil society
Afghan civil society is a large, fragmented field of diverse and often competing interests represented in a wide
array of organisations of varying types and capabilities at
all levels from the grassroots up to the national and even
international arenas.
Traditionally, civil society has had its basis in a plethora
of informal community-level groups, such as the shura
or jirga, which carry out important governance functions
in areas such as local dispute resolution, or the mobilisation and management of community resources. Basing
their membership on status acquired through traditional
social organisation, the tribe or ethnicity, as well as de
facto power in the community, they retain considerable
legitimacy among ordinary Afghans. Groups that do not
already have status or resources, can have difficulties being represented in these bodies. They are of particular
importance in delivering justice in the many rural areas
which the state does not reach nor has legitimacy.
Alongside traditional groups, and emerging in increasing
numbers under the influence of external development actors, is a wide range of informal community based organizations (CBOs) dedicated to furthering specific interests
in the community. These include, for example, community education committees, health shura, water committees, savings groups and other forms of self-help groups,
agricultural committees, women’s and youth groups.
CDCs, although technically not CBOs as entities registered under the MRRD, should be included in this group.
They provide a focus for community mobilisation and
community governance in much the same way as informal village councils do in many other parts of the world.
As they have been established in almost 40,000 villages
in Afghanistan and have become widely accepted by local communities as a means of representation and gaining access to resources, as well as a rare legitimate point
of contact to the state, they are of considerable strategic
importance within wider civil society.
Beyond the community, working at the provincial and
national levels, there is a growing number of NGOs and
professional and other types of formally registered associations. A majority of these are small organisations
of fewer than 12 staff members with budgets of under
US$100,000. They tend to focus on delivering services,
particularly training and information, to members and the
community, while women’s issues are the most common
focus of the many possible fields of activity.
Many of these NGOs have been induced by international
NGOs or been established to exploit donor opportunities.
Consequently, there is a very high level of donor dependency among this group of more formal civil society organisations. Many provincially based NGOs are subject
to political influence and their legitimacy with their constituencies is often questionable.
At the centre there is a small number of leading NGOs,
which are increasingly engaged in advocacy on issues
such as women’s and human rights, governance, peace
building, and better quality and more responsive government services. Their capacities remain limited, but increasing efforts are being made by these national NGOs
to work through networks and strategic coalitions in their
approaches to governments and donors.
There are a small number of prominent CSO networks
mobilising like-minded organisations on a national or regional level, such as the Afghan Women’s Network, or
the Afghan Civil Society Forum. Otherwise, coordination of civil society as a sector can only be said to exist
among elite at the Kabul level. The linkages between the
provincial levels and the community, and between formal
CSOs and CBOs and traditional forms of civil society, are
particularly weak.
A milestone was reached at the Tokyo donor conference
in July 2012, when a loose coalition of advocacy NGOs
succeeded for the first time in gaining recognition from
the government of civil society’s legitimate role in contributing to, and monitoring, development policy and the
aid coordination mechanism.
Our target groups
Rural communities
Rural communities in Afghanistan are characterised by
very low levels of social and economic development and
exclusion from the mainstream of Afghan political and
economic life. Access to essential services and infrastructure, such as education, health, safe water, and sanitation
remains considerably more restricted than in urban areas,
impacting heavily on the life chances of rural inhabitants.
Development indicators in almost all cases are lower for
rural inhabitants than the national averages.
The rural poor with whom we work say that gaining
greater access to both education and healthcare is one of
the most important changes to be made to make their lives
better. In addition, their main priority is to find ways of
improving and diversifying livelihoods. 80% of the rural
population is dependent upon agriculture and agriculturerelated activities. Agriculture is under-developed; typically it does not provide the basis for full employment,
very often yields only enough for subsistence needs, and
the livelihoods derived from it are particularly vulnerable
to frequent natural disasters, such as drought, flooding
and earthquakes. Poor maintenance and damage caused
by decades of conflict has seriously degraded essential
infrastructure, such as irrigation systems and roads. Low
levels of education, lack of business skills and access to
relevant training, limited access to markets, which domestically remain poorly developed, all limit the scope of
rural people to either develop or diversify existing economic activities.
Our community stakeholders are also concerned with
gaining proper access to, and cooperation with, government structures so that they can play a part in the broader
development planning process, influence government
service provision, and also advocate for better access to
social and economic resources. Communities themselves
lack many of the capacities needed to do this, including
technical know-how, solidarity and consensus, and organisational strength.
Fact:
77% of all Afghans live in rural
communities
36% of the rural population lives
below the poverty line.
Over 50% are at risk of falling
into poverty.
Only 21% of the rural population
and 7% of rural women can read
or write.
School enrolment is 20% lower
in villages than in towns.
77% of the rural population lacks
safe drinking water, while proper
sanitation is even scarcer.
Under-five child mortality stands
at a shocking 23%.
*A list of selected sources used
throughout the SP is found in
Annex 2
The Community Development Council of Sangarkhel village in Samangan is constructing a road with support from NRP.
Photo | Zamanullah
17
The nationwide NSP Programme has succeeded in establishing elected CDCs in almost all villages across the
country, which have a mandate to deliver governmentfunded small infrastructure projects and also to carry out
governance functions in the community. CDCs’ success
in promoting community participation in decision making has been limited. They remain organisationally weak,
dominated by elite interests and have yet to find a way of
operating that facilitates serious participation of women
in communal decision making.
The system of sub-national governance, to which communities should refer and participate in, functions very
weakly. This is particularly the case at the district level – that which is closest to the community. There are
a number of forms of representative councils in existence, often present in the same district. They have
varying and often contradictory mandates, possess low
technical and organisational capacity, and are poorly
connected to communities, district executives and provincial structures. District executives are starved of the
finance, competent staff and authority to contribute effectively to service provision in the community. In the
next two to three years, strengthening of sub-national
governance, and reforming and transforming districtlevel representative bodies into one uniform structure,
will be the subject of a major government-led initiative. This will be carried out under the auspices of the
Independent Directorate of Local Governance, and will
hopefully lead to a sustainable and functioning solution.
gal and policy framework, however, belies the continuing
challenges women and girls face in achieving parity with
their male counterparts regarding enjoyment of rights and
access to social and economic resources.
Gender relations and women’s status vary across the
country, dependent on many variables, including ethnic
differences and related variations in patriarchal customs,
educational opportunities (and associated status and
wealth), distance from urban centres, and exposure to
conflict. In general, however, women have limited access
to services such as education and healthcare, to work outside the home, and to financial resources. They are also
subject to severe restrictions on their freedom to travel,
socialise and participate in public life.
Violence against women and girls is widespread in both
public and domestic spheres and it has been estimated
that as much as 87% of Afghan women are subjected to
some form of sexual, physical, economic or psychological abuse. Enduring forms of gender-based violence impact negatively on a woman’s health, and her educational
and economic opportunities, as does child marriage and
other forms of forced marriage.
Support for the equal rights of women in all areas has
been, and continues to be, a major priority for international donors to Afghanistan. Considerable progress has
Women and gender relations
The promotion of women’s rights and full equality of
men and women in Afghanistan has been a high priority for international donors and the Afghan government
since the establishment of the post-Taliban state in 2002.
The constitution guarantees women’s equality before the
law, the state has signed the UN Convention to Eliminate
all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),
and a law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women
(EVAW) came into force in 2009. Gender mainstreaming
has been strongly supported in donor-funded programmes
and women’s rights are prioritised as a cross-cutting issue
in the ANDS and the current 22 NPPs. The favourable leFact:
Women in Afghanistan, particularly in rural communities,
continue to be subject to considerable restrictions on their
behaviour and mobility, which limit their opportunities to
participate fully in society, both economically and politically.
Male and female spheres are strongly segregated; men
are assigned primacy if not sole occupation of the public
realm, with a responsibility to provide for the household and
defend family honour by protecting women’s virtue, while
women are restricted to the domestic realm.
Most women, particularly the urban poor and those living in
rural communities, spend much of their lives in seclusion,
rarely leaving the home without a male escort.
Gul Sima, 14 years old, is learning tailoring with in a NRP project in
Shorqul village in Samangan.
Photo | Lisa Brunzell
18
been made in extending education to girls and providing women access to appropriate healthcare. Over the
past ten years, the life expectancy of Afghan women has
risen from 42 to 51 years, while maternal mortality has
dropped by 80% from 1,600 to 374/100,000 live births.
Despite such advances, a global survey conducted by the
Thomas Reuters Foundation in 2011 ranked Afghanistan
as the world’s most dangerous country in which to be
born a woman.
A severe impediment to Afghan women making greater
progress towards equality and fulfilling their rights is their
highly limited access to justice. A weak justice system, a
lack of understanding of, and support for, women’s rights
by the police, a low awareness of the law and human
rights among men and women, the continued dominance
of local, informal justice mechanisms at the community
level, and restrictions placed on women’s freedom of
movement owing to custom and insecurity in the country
are all contributory factors.
On paper women have significant opportunities to participate in public life. Afghanistan has a parliamentary
quota of 25% of seats for women, while in communities the NSP guarantees the equal representation men
and women in 40,000 CDCs. However, in practice
these opportunities are little more than symbolic and
there are no public forums, where women enjoy real
decision-making power and participate on par with men.
Children – girls and boys
Children under the age of 15 number approximately 13
million, representing around 43% of the total Afghan
population. Afghan children are disproportionately vulnerable to poverty in comparison with adults. Virtually
all girls and boys in Afghanistan, urban or rural, with or
without a disability, are deprived according to at least
one dimension of standard sets of poverty measurement.
Many development outcomes for children show marked
gender differences, with girls experiencing similar disadvantages to boys as women do to men in Afghanistan. In
particular girls fare worse than boys in areas such as access to education, to health services, and to justice (with
girls regularly being accused of ‘moral crimes’ after being the subjects of sexual abuse and gender-based violence), as well as being more likely to be exploited for
their labour.
Afghanistan has ratified the Convention of the Rights
of the Child, but except in Education and Health, government policy is poorly developed with regard to children. The country lacks protective mechanisms for the
safeguarding of children’s rights and their wellbeing.
Traditional customs, political instability, and the lack
of security in the country all undermine political attention and the development of effective measures
to improve the situation of children in the country.
Despite the considerable advances made since 2002 towards extending education to all children, in 2011 ap-
proximately 5 million of a total of 12 million school-aged
children were not enrolled or attending school, of which
more than 60% were girls. Access to school is more limited in rural areas, and nomad communities are particularly
disadvantaged with only 10% of their children between
the ages 6 -9 enrolled. 1% of children aged 36-59 months
were attending pre-school in Afghanistan.
A similar picture emerges regarding child health; significant advances have been made, but children’s health
status remains unacceptably low, affected by household
poverty, poor health of mothers, particularly during pregnancy, and continuing limited access to health services,
especially in rural areas.
55% of the childhood population is stunted, i.e. short for
its age as a sign of chronic malnutrition. 18% is wasted,
11% severely so, i.e. low weight for its height as a sign of
on-going malnutrition. Although improved compared to
earlier years, malnutrition is still very prevalent. Progress toward achieving full vaccination of children
for infectious diseases is slow. Only 18% of children
aged 12-23 months are fully vaccinated and one in four
children receives no vaccination before age 1. Vaccination rates of children at 12 months for most diseases are
around 82%.
Social protection measures remain inadequate. Child labour rates, affecting older children between the ages of
12-14 in particular, are high, as child labour is a coping
strategy for poor families. An estimated 13% of children
aged 7-14 are subject to such exploitation, with boys (9%
of the total) being used to work in the fields and look
after animals, while girls (17%) are engaged in onerous
domestic duties. Child marriages, affecting girls in particular, and with serious negative consequences for their
ability to access education and for their health, as a result
of early pregnancies, are believed (in the absence of recent data) to remain routine. Early and forced marriages, affecting girls in particular, remains prevalent. This
has serious negative consequences and is a violation of
their right to education, health and participation.
Child marriage should be considered as just one form of
violence against children which in all its forms, including
the routine use of severe physical punishment as a means
of discipline, is routinely meted out by parents and adult
authority figures.
Children are also exposed to the on-going conflict on a
daily basis, particularly in rural areas. In 2011, a total
of 1,756 children were killed or injured due to the conflict, representing an average of 4.8 children killed or
injured per day. Children are also the targets of recruitment by parties (in most cases various armed opposition groups) to the conflict. In 2011, 316 children were
reportedly recruited to armed factions, while at other
times children have been used to conduct suicide at19
tacks, to plant IEDs and to transport provisions to armed
groups.
Persons with disabilities
Persons with disabilities of all kinds count among the
most socially excluded in Afghanistan and among the
most vulnerable to falling into poverty. The widespread
social stigma attached to disability and a lack of understanding among the general public of both the rights of
persons with disabilities and the challenges they face are
primary causes of the discrimination to which they are
routinely subjected. Their social exclusion is compounded
by the absence of inclusive social policy and the failure of
both the GoA and international donors to lend financial
support to the implementation of existing legal and policy
measures which target essential services and the social
protection of persons with disabilities.
Persons with disabilities have great difficulty in accessing
both basic and specialist health services. Health staffs are
not trained to work with persons with disabilities, health
facilities are not equipped to meet the needs of persons
with disabilities and extension services to those with severe impediments to mobility are virtually non-existent.
State health services include physiotherapy, but not disability-specific services such as physical rehabilitation and
orthopaedics.
As 68% of the Afghan population is under the age of 25, a
majority of persons with disabilities are children between
the ages of 0-14. Children with disabilities are significantly more likely than their peers to be poor, illiterate,
malnourished and suffer poor health. In particular, children with disabilities have very limited access to education. Inclusive education is not widely available, owing
to institutional weakness, lack of finance, and low levels
Fact:
There are an estimated
750,000-850,000 Afghans with
a severe disability, amounting
to 2.7% of the population.
This figure rises to almost 5%
when all those with a disability
of any kind are taken into consideration.
One in five households has a
member with a disability.
One in five households in Afghanistan
has a member with a disability.
Photo | Magnus Forsberg
20
of preparedness of schools and teachers. Special needs
education, in all but the case of 3 schools, is provided by
NGOs outside the education system. Children with disabilities are notable for their absence in key Afghan social
policies and strategies, such as in the fields of education
and health.
Lack of education for persons with disabilities impacts
negatively on their ability to find gainful employment,
compounding challenges caused by social stigma and lack
of understanding of potential employers. Although national policy for vocational training prescribes a national
quota of 3-5% of placements on skills training courses to
be taken up by persons with disabilities, targets are not
met as vocational training organisations are ill-equipped
to adapt their services to the needs of persons with
disabilities.
Women and girls with disability are doubly afflicted
by discrimination and abuse; firstly as persons with
disabilities, but also as women. Social isolation and dependency on caregivers increases their vulnerability to
exploitation, abuse and health risks, such as maternal and
infant illness and death. Women with disabilities are believed (in the absence of reliable data) to be particularly
subject to gender-based violence, particularly emotional
cruelty and ill-treatment, which are both contributory factors to the high levels of mental health problems among
women with disabilities.
Despite the fact that women and girls with disabilities
rank among the poorest of Afghanistan’s poor and have
higher rates of illiteracy than both non-disabled men
and women, they are largely invisible in national policy
in support of gender rights and major national and NGO
gender-mainstreaming programmes.
Our
development goals
We have set ourselves four long-term development goals that articulate in concrete terms the key changes we want
to contribute to regarding the ultimate empowerment of our target groups as we make progress towards realising our
vision of an Afghanistan where all of its people live in dignity.
1
2
Economically and socially just
rural communities
Rural communities in which the wellbeing of all is achieved
through livelihood security, access to responsive essential
services, and the opportunity to participate fully in community life and the decision-making process.
3
Afghan society
A society in which women have the power, confidence and
opportunity to participate fully in public and community life,
enjoy equal access with men to all public services and employment, and in which all forms of violence against women is
unacceptable.
4
Full inclusion of persons with
disabilities in Afghan society
A society in which men and women with disabilities enjoy
equal rights with all others to health, education, employment and participation in public life and in which they are
protected from all forms of violence.
Our
Full participation of women in
All children in Afghanistan participate in achieving their full potential
The rights of children to survival and development are
promoted and protected so that all children in Afghanistan grow
up in a safe environment in which they are able to participate
fully in realising their development potential.
strategic priorities
We have identified five areas in which to prioritise our
energies and resources for the period 2014-2017. These
strategic priorities reflect the concerns and interests of
the women, children, persons with disability and the rural communities with which we work, placed within the
context of the ANDS and the set of broader development
challenges facing Afghanistan.
Our strategic priorities are areas where we can make a
real difference to the lives of our target groups by building on our
•
continued programmatic focus and expertise in education, health, rehabilitation of persons with disabilities and rural development;
•
community-based operations delivered by Afghan
staff based in the locations in which they work;
•
community acceptance which gives us enviable access to the communities, including all but the most
insecure locations;
•
vast knowledge and experience providing us with
in-depth contextual understanding of how to achieve
sustainable results;
•
reputation across Afghanistan for delivering quality programmes for over 30 years, and the size and
scope of our operations, currently across 17 provinces. This gives us credibility and influence when
working with government at all levels both within
Afghanistan and in Sweden and Europe;
•
ability to forge lasting commitments and solidarity
among members and supporters, ensuring continued
interest in and funding towards the development of
Afghanistan.
Our integrated, community and rights-based approach ensures that our strategic priorities are not separate spheres
of engagement, but are interlinked and mutually supporting. In this way, they provide unity of purpose and ensure
that we utilize our resources in the most cost-effective
way toward achieving our goals and objectives.
21
Our
1
strategies
The specific health needs of rural communities, especially women,
children and persons with disabilities
Strategic Objective | Equitable access to and utilisation of health services by
women, children, persons with disabilities and rural communities.
Achieving this objective requires strengthening health care services available in the community, ensuring that community members are fully informed on what their rights are concerning health services
and on how and where they can access those services. It furthermore necessitates making material
improvements to community facilities, such as for water and sanitation, to render the local environment
conducive to healthier living. In addition, community members require education and information on a
full range of health issues, so that they can make the choices necessary to achieve healthier lifestyles.
We have been active for many years in providing state health services in the community (BPHS) and
in provincial hospitals (EPHS). We will retain a significant, but reduced, portfolio of BPHS and EPHS
contracts in the coming years. Our strategy is an integrated package of actions at all levels designed to
strengthen the Afghan health system, by raising community demand for health services, strengthening
professional and management capacities, and influencing policy makers.
Outcome 1 | SCA target groups and communities have a fuller understanding of how to
prevent illness and improve their health
a) We will work closely with a range of community
stakeholders to ensure that families, and especially mothers and children, with and without disabilities, receive
regular and appropriate health education and information
in the community. We will extend our existing community health education initiatives that target women and
mothers, in particular, such as the Learning for Healthy
Living project. We will strengthen the role of community
health shuras by supporting them to take responsibility
for these educational activities.
We will also provide support and training to CBOs, such
as DPOs, women’s associations and CDCs, so that they
also may run their own health campaigns in the community, disseminate important public health information,
and provide education tailored to those whom they represent.
In addition, we will continue to support health facilities
to provide relevant advice and information on key topics
for healthy life and preventing illness, such as nutrition,
vaccination of children, and the importance of regular exercise.
We will continue to work with schools and school teachers, so that all children receive basic health education
and also benefit from routine medical check-ups on their
growth and development.
22
b) We will also run WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene)
projects in target communities in cooperation with community development councils, water management committees and other community groups, to provide a safe
water supply, ensure basic, but proper sanitation, and to
give guidance and education on hygiene. To reinforce the
effect of these projects, we will also run environmental
awareness campaigns to stimulate communities to make
sure that their villages are safer, cleaner places to live and
to improve more sustainable use of natural resources,
such as water and agricultural land.
c) We will assist CBOs and district-level assemblies to
not only run health campaigns, but also to advocate to
government, NGOs and donors for improved community
infrastructure in areas such as waste disposal, irrigation,
or safe drinking water supply. We will help these groups
reach a wider audience by facilitating their use of available media, such as local radio and TV.
Outcome 2 | Health services increasingly
meet the specific needs of the target communities with a focus on women and girls,
with and without disabilities and marginalised groups
a) We will concentrate on targeted interventions which
aim to enhance the quality, accessibility, and reach of
health services, especially the free, state Basic Package
of Health Services (BPHS), where we operate, addressing institutional challenges at all levels of the health
sector. We will continue to prioritise child and maternal
healthcare services, along with services to persons with
disability and women in general. The BPHS and EPHS
interventions will not only serve to strengthen access to
and quality of health services in remote areas, but also
provide platforms upon which we can engage in handson capacity development on state health staff and institutions, as well as test innovations and new approaches to
service delivery that can potentially form the evidence for
influencing policy development.
b) To assist in building a cadre of specialised and appropriately qualified health care workers, we will continue
to provide and facilitate both pre-service and in-service
training of health professionals, specifically of midwives
and community nurses, who predominantly work within
BPHS and EPHS projects, while also offering technical
assistance to professional associations of physiotherapists, orthopaedists, midwives and others. Our trainings
will benefit from expertise provided through partnerships
with international medical institutions. We will also apply our knowledge and expertise in training health professionals to policy dialogue with the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and MoLSAMD in order to develop
more appropriate national curricula for the training of
health workers, especially those working in community
health care with our target groups.
c) We will work closely with provincial health authorities and their district-level officers to assist them in the
strengthening of their stewardship of health services in
the community. We will facilitate learning by carrying
out joint planning and monitoring of BPHS with provincial health departments, providing targeted trainings in
management and administration, coordinating its own
community activities with the Provincial Health Departments (PHDs), and facilitating closer linkages and cooperation between PHDs and communities and local health
shuras. Special attention will be paid to working with
PHDs to identify ways to recruit and then retain greater
numbers of female health staff. We will also work closely
with existing health management and administration staff
to develop their understanding of the specific needs of
persons with disabilities in order to ensure that health facilities provide suitable access and appropriate services.
d) As no provision is made in BPHS for enhancing physical access to health services, we will continue to seek
resources for the construction and renovation of health
facilities, including physiotherapy clinics and orthopaedic workshop, with a focus on increasing access for our
target groups. This will include building and equipping
more maternity clinics nearer to communities, as well as
providing more basic facilities, such as ramps for those
with impaired mobility or accessible toilets for women
and all persons with disabilities. This work will include
developing and implementing minimum quality standards in construction wherever these do not yet exist.
e) We will tackle the current low level of access to health
information of persons with disabilities in the health system by providing specialist training organisations with
the resources necessary to train health staff in appropriate
ways to work with persons with disabilities, such as those
with hearing and visual impairments. In partnership with
disabled people’s organisations and international NGOs,
we will also advocate nationally and at the provincial
government level for practical measures to increase the
access to health information and services for persons with
disabilities and all women.
In areas where RAD has physiotherapy clinics, we will
continue to work closely with MoPH to facilitate the
handover of responsibility, according to the Afghan health
policy, to BPHS and EPHS actors. We will continue to
operate our orthopaedic workshops, but will intensify our
policy dialogue with the government to gain acceptance
of BPHS and EPHS responsibility for orthopaedics, with
the aim of an eventual handover to the MoPH.
f) At the national and provincial level, we will join forces
A midwife attend a mother with her new born baby at one of SCA’s
hospitals. The skilled birth attendances are still among the lowest in
the world but thanks to a national program for midwife education it is
increasing.
Photo | SCA
with other rights-based NGOs, and women’s and disabled
people’s organisations to carry out advocacy for greater
access and greater responsiveness to special needs and
interests of health services in the community. Policy and
advocacy research will be facilitated through partner23
ships with international think tanks, and development
and medical research institutes. Special attention will be
paid to encouraging the government and international
donors to integrate the physical rehabilitation of persons with disability into MoPH structures and policies.
Outcome 3 | Communities are more actively
involved in the promotion of accountable
and responsive health services
a) We will work closely with community health shuras to
strengthen their organisational capacities. A starting point
will be the facilitation of representative shura memberships, which include persons with disabilities and women. Where the full participation of women alongside men
is not possible, we will assist women to form their own
health shuras. Facilitation and guidance will be to identify the health needs of the community and communicate
these to health facilities’ management. We will also assist the shuras to carry out routine monitoring of health
services provided by community health facilities, based
on prior training and advice on defining what to monitor
and how to do it.
Shuras will also receive education on understanding their rights to health, so that they have a basis for
making legitimate demands upon BPHS implementers, and district and provincial-level health authorities. To do this, we will assist the shuras in cooperating
with key community governance bodies, such as CDCs,
and also in formulating and conveying their advocacy
messages.
b) We will assist village health shuras and the voluntary
community health workers to carry out their key function of raising awareness of available health services and
transferring health information from health facilities to
households and individuals. As with community health
shuras, we will encourage the formation of separate
women’s shuras charged with communicating with the
village’s women.
Community health workers will be given training in disability awareness, reproductive health, gender-based violence and women’s rights to assist them when advising
and referring patients, and also to enable village shuras
take part in health campaigns in the community.
We will continue to work in partnership with the education system to increase the number of qualified teachers in the country
and the quality of teaching in schools.
24
Photo | Lisa Brunzell
2
Education for children and adults with diverse abilities and
backgrounds
Strategic Objective | Equal access to quality educational opportunities
Action needs to be taken in three broad areas to achieve this objective. Education services in the community need strengthening so that schooling is more accessible to a greater number of children from all
social groups and communities, and so that teaching is both of higher quality and better adapted to the
specific requirements of particular groups of children.
With the educational status of the vast majority of Afghans at a very low level, the value of receiving a
good education from an early age are not fully understood. Efforts are needed to raise awareness of the
benefits of education and to stimulate demand and raise expectations among parents and their children
for relevant, well-adapted and high quality schooling.
To meet this demand, the institutional capacities of all levels of the national education system require
further development. This includes developing more responsive and inclusive national policies, greater
and more equitable resourcing of schooling, decentralization of authority to the provinces and districts,
improved management and coordination of the system at the sub-national level, improved management
of schools, and increased participation of communities in school governance.
We have strengthened our commitment to getting all children into school. This means an extension of
outreach to embrace communities and groups so far not served by the government educational system,
a broader application of inclusive education wherever we work, and further testing of new approaches
to feed into policy and the development of the sector. This has important implications for how we utilize
and manage our resources. In the strategic plan period, we will phase out our financial and technical
support to the government-run Model Schools in favour of concentrating resources on CBE, including
possible expansion and intensification of CBE coverage, as well as limited support to CBE hub schools.
Outcome 1 | Strengthened delivery of education at the community level, adapted to
the needs of all children
a) In the absence of government capacity and finance for
primary schooling in remote rural communities, we will
continue to provide Community Based Education, but
with a new focus on reaching all children in the community, specifically those with disabilities, and the internally
displaced. Further expansion and intensification of CBE
coverage may also take place.
We will test pre-schooling in selected communities where
we run CBE classes. The pilot project will be based upon
the conclusions of a field-based research study, carried
out in full cooperation with religious teachers and village
leaders, that seeks to identify a feasible and acceptable
approach to integrating pre-schooling into the existing
masjid education.
To strengthen our focus on inclusive education, we will
increase and broaden our support for the establishment of
preparatory classes for children with special educational
needs, so as to prepare them for inclusion in mainstream
schools. Our existing support to Model Schools (MS) will
be phased out in favour of limited support to the more
1
widely occurring Hub Schools (HS) . Our strategy will
be to merge preparatory classes in the HS in those areas
where the Community Rehabilitation and Development
Centres (CRDC) we run for persons with disabilities are
located nearby a HS. Strong efforts will be made to create institutional linkages between the CRDCs and CBE
schools in order to pave the way for children with disabilities who receive preparatory education at home to
continue their education in the CBE schools. We will continue to support the existing provincial-level inclusive education resource centres with which we currently work.
b) We will continue to work in partnership with the education system to increase the number of qualified teachers in the country and the quality of teaching in schools.
Teachers, and administrators, will continue to benefit
from in-service study at SCA’s teacher training centres
and the special courses and exchange visits that we arrange throughout the year, especially for young female
teachers. Training on special needs and inclusive education will be integrated in to all the above activities. Efforts will be made to share resources with the district and
provincial teacher training centres, as well as the provincial science centres. Over the strategic period, our sup-
1
According to the MoE CBE policy, Hub School is the public school to which the surrounding nearest CBE schools/
classes are clustered (annexed) and being administered as its outreach classes.
25
port to teachers will gradually shift away from conventional training courses to concentrate on mentoring and
coaching in the classroom. This will apply not only in
SCA-run CBE classes, but also in the HSs, with the aim
of enhancing in a more effective way the local capacities
necessary to ensuring quality CBE classes.
c) SCA will also intensify its existing support to Provincial and District Education Departments using a carefully
planned sequenced strategic programme of training, facilitation and mentoring through joint action, in order to
promote government ownership of, and community participation in, the delivery of CBE.
PEDs and DEDs, with the inclusion of community members, will be included fully in the planning, budgeting,
management and maintenance of each school, in a process of practical application of skills (learning by doing)
learned in the training room by which there is an increasing transfer of responsibility and control away from SCA
to the PEDs and DEDs.
Communities will be encouraged to establish School
Management Committees (SMCs) for each cluster of
CBE classes, as vehicles for their participation in, and
contribution to, the planning and management of their
own schools, and also, in time, to conduct community-led
advocacy for child rights and quality education services.
We will work closely with SMCs to help them develop
their organisational capacities, while facilitating regular
dialogue between them and their respective DEDs and
PEDs to ensure that they are included in the entire planning cycle. Ultimately, we will assist them to represent
community demands for better education and carry out
local-level advocacy toward local education authorities.
The programme of capacity support to PEDs and DEDs
will be delivered within the joint provincial and district
institutional framework within which education is intended to be delivered. In this way, our aim is to not only
strengthen the government systems and structures necessary for effective planning and delivery of CBE throughout a given area, but also to ensure that the government
education system is sufficiently capacitated to effect the
placement of all pupils in nearby schools as they transition out of CBE after grade 6 or 9.
d) Our direct support to schools and teachers will be
geared to a gradual and agreed upon phasing out and
transfer of responsibilities to the MoE. By working closely with the MoE, we expect to be able to upgrade and
hand over all of our girls’ annexes2 to government ownership as formally recognised schools by the end of the
strategic period.
We will enter into negotiations with the MoE and lobby
for wider government and donor support allocating the
2
26
resources necessary to affect the viable handover of CBE
schools.
e) With the aim of improving the teaching and learning
environments in schools, we will continue to support
the construction of educational infrastructure, including
CBE school buildings, water and sanitation facilities, surrounding walls to the girls’ CBE schools, CBE Resource
Centres, as well as suitably adapted rooms for the Special
and Inclusive Education in HSs.
Outcome 2 | Increased demand for education amongst the target communities
a) We will promote education for all in communities
through a range of participatory methods, working closely with relevant CBOs, community leaders and community members – parents and children – focusing on child’s
rights, gender rights, and the rights of children with disabilities, allied to Islamic teaching.
b) Support will be provided for the organisational development of CBOs such as SMC’s and Teachers Associations to assist them in defining their mandates in promoting education and gain competencies in advocacy and
lobbying. This will be carried out through participatory
organisational assessments to clarify each CBO’s identity, purpose and objectives, and establish an agenda for
their capacity development. We will facilitate thematic
and technical trainings, as well as important organisational processes, such as problem solving, strategy and action
planning, and the development of approaches to promote
education in the community, advocacy and lobbying.
c) Working from the assumption that literate parents,
being more aware of the benefits of education, are more
likely to demand it for their children, we will promote
and facilitate access to adult literacy courses for community members. This will include the SMC members
and parents with special focus on women (mothers). We
will try to utilize, where possible, the human resources
of Teachers’ Associations (TA) in running the literacy
courses within the target communities.
Through HSs and its CRDCs, RAD will continue its support to adult literacy with the goal of facilitating communication with, and support to, children and other persons with disabilities. This will be complemented by our
Health Programme’s Learning for Healthy Life (LHL)
project.
Outcome 3 | Enhanced accountability of
government for delivering quality education towards parents and communities
a) In order to support PEDs and DEDs understand their
roles and responsibilities more fully, we will provide
them with capacity development support focusing on
Girls’ annexes are girls schools run by NGOs in locations where schooling is provided only for boys.
rights, responsiveness, accountability and quality of service provision. We will facilitate exposure visits, conduct
management trainings, carry out joint planning and monitoring exercises, facilitate dialogue and joint processes
with CBOs and district-level and community-level representative bodies, with the aim of improving the capacity
of local education authorities to deliver quality education.
b) We will support local advocacy efforts and act to raise
the responsiveness of government to community demands and to hold the government accountable. This will
include:
•
Assisting education-oriented CBOs (School Management Committees, teachers Associations) to develop the knowledge, strategies and individual competences to claim their children’s right to education.
3
•
Supporting CBOs in the planning and implementation of advocacy projects, including assisting in the
formation of coalitions and networks of CBOs with
the aim of influencing local education policy and
strategy.
•
Joining forces with provincial authorities, other
NGOs and CBOs in advocating to the MoE and central government for greater resources to be assigned
to education at the community level.
•
Partaking in national and international advocacy
campaigns aimed at the central government and donors in coalition with leading NGOs and relevant national and international think tanks and research institutions for increased resource allocation, as well as
for more inclusive education policies and strategies.
Rural livelihoods
Strategic Objective | Women, persons with disabilities and vulnerable
rural households are making a secure means of living that provides resilience against
shocks and emergencies
This strategic objective will require action at three levels. Firstly, individuals, often working together in
local mutual interest groups, will need to develop a full range of technical, analytical and business skills
that enable them to diversify their paid employment and other economic activities. In order to plan for
alternative livelihoods, analyse potential and risks, to take up new economic activities, and to access
markets and new business partners, households will need to have reliable access to a wider range of
information that is currently the case. Lastly, households and individuals will need to develop networks of
relationships that will facilitate the cooperation necessary for sustaining reliable and resilient livelihoods,
such as between employers and potential employees, between producers, processors and markets,
between businesses and suppliers of finance, or with policy makers, service providers, training organisations, and professional associations.
Working with communities specifically on livelihoods is a relatively new field of work for us, although to
some extent it builds on the experiences of the RAD and Rural Development programs in agriculture
and employment support. In order to ensure that we have the necessary expertise in place and to test
our planned approach, we will pilot this strategy in a limited geographical area where we are already
present and have developed the trust of the local community.
Outcome 1 | Adult members of rural
communities have strengthened capacities and improved access to resources
to diversify their household incomes
women and persons with disability, the economic rights
of all, the recognition of the value of all types of unpaid
work, and the concept of household strategies to achieve
livelihood security.
a) Our community-based field workers will initially
work closely with communities and their various representative organisations and special interest groups to
raise awareness of the potential of women and persons
with disabilities to contribute significantly to household
livelihoods and the local economy. Using a wide range
of participatory methods with the community, including
village elders and religious leaders, we will promote the
acceptance throughout the community of the rights of
b) We will promote basic education and the development of vocational skills for all in the community, with a
particular focus on women and persons with disabilities.
We will continue to run adult literacy projects, such as
the Learning for Health Living project, but will also facilitate access to basic and occupational literacy courses
run by other NGOs, or provided by the government under the National Skills Development Program. We will
also provide current vocational trainings for persons with
27
disabilities and organising trainings in business planning
and management, with accompanying opportunities for
learning by doing. We will assist individuals to access
training opportunities offered by specialist vocational
training organisations and NGOs. These activities will
be supplemented and reinforced by organising exchanges
and study visits, and by identifying opportunities for apprenticeships and work experience.
c) Opening up greater access to capital for new busi-
nesses, in the form of grants, loans and micro-credit, will
complement activities linked to the development of business skills. We will continue to provide revolving loans to
persons with disabilities, but will concentrate on facilitating linkages to microcredit organisations and other channels for financing business start-ups, as well as facilitating community savings schemes run by CBOs.
e) We will access any available research, but also con-
duct and facilitate research on a range of topics to inform activities aimed at strengthening rural livelihoods
in Afghanistan. This will include investigating available
sources of credit, markets and how to gain access to them,
labour markets, the full range of strategies deployed by
households for coping and developing resilience, and
the impediments to engagement in livelihood activities.
Wherever this research demands the engagement of the
community, such as when mapping household livelihood
strategies, we will utilize community-led participatory
methodologies to increase local ownership and further
build community capacities.
Outcome 2 | Community-based organisations
are increasingly promoting rural livelihoods
We will work closely with livelihood
CBOs to assist them to gain greater
access to markets.
Photo | Kajsa Johansson
28
a) We will work with CBOs, including self-help groups,
which are oriented toward strengthening livelihoods.
Structured support for the organisational development
of each organisation/group will then be offered, starting
with a clarification of each CBO’s role, vision and mission, based on the identification of members’ mutual interests.
b) By means of coaching, mentoring and transferring
knowledge of managing organisations and business planning, we will support livelihood CBOs to assist their
members to start their own businesses.
We will also encourage livelihoods CBOs, particularly
those representing women and persons with disabilities,
to research job markets and contact potential employers,
so that they can support their members who are seeking
employment to identify available jobs and gain access to
employers.
c) We will work closely with livelihood CBOs to assist
them to gain greater access to markets. The primary focus
here will be on supporting CBOs to gather relevant market information and to use this information as a means for
furthering the productive and marketing activities.
d) Through training and facilitation, we will equip livelihoods CBOs with skills for advocating together with other CBOs, NGOs and CDCs, for greater access to markets,
more favourable sub-national development policy and
public and donor investment in community infrastructure, such as accessible roads, irrigation and electricity
installations.
CBOs will also be supported to advocate to provincial
and district-level governments for the sustainable, participatory and fair management of resources, with a focus
on gender inequities and the rights of the marginalized
and rural poor. Specific issues might include, land rights,
inheritance issues, water rights and access to markets.
e) In order to strengthen business cooperation, mutually beneficial economic activity in the community, the
4
functioning of local markets and the policy and planning process, we will facilitate livelihood CBOs to form
partnerships and networks. This might include joint
business ventures, mechanisms for the marketing of
produce, goods and services, advocacy structures, and
public-private forums for public budgeting, planning,
monitoring and evaluation of sub-national government
projects.
Community Governance
Strategic Objective | Community members are actively engaged in decision
making, influencing the development of their communities and are able to hold relevant
stakeholders to account.
The achievement of this objective depends upon strengthening the right to representation and participation of all groups in the community in decisions that affect their lives. This is key in order to fulfill our
mission of contributing to the empowerment of our target groups ‘to participate fully in society and influence their own development.´ Weak sub-national governance has for many years been identified as an
important but neglected factor in the Afghan context.
To achieve the objective we will focus principally on capacity development of formal and informal representative organisations in the community. We will also assist CBOs to access the government and public
administration closest to the community, those at the district level.
Complementary action is also required with district-level bodies, especially district representative bodies
(DRBs), to strengthen the ability of the government to respond to community demands.
As existing DRBS are currently subject to reform, with a new single representative body (District Coordination Council - DCCs) to be established in every district over the next two years, we will hold back
piloting this part of the strategy until DCCs are fully established in the locations in which we work. In
sequencing terms, this part of the strategy is to be subject to further assessment in 2014/2015 in order to
conclude if, where and when to activate it. Such an assessment will include studying our organisational
preparedness and ability to embark on it, as well as take security developments into consideration.
Outcome 1 | Rural communities, including women, children, and persons with
disabilities, are well represented and increasingly participate in democratic community organisations and decision making
a) We will carry out a participatory mapping in targeted communities, identifying the priority local development challenges, decision-making structures,
existing channels for obtaining information on development and policies as well as the distribution
of economic and social resources in the community.
Existing mechanisms for community participation and
the claiming of rights, such as CDCs, local management committees, and special interest and self-help
groups will be mapped. Other actors with the potential to promote change in the community will also be
identified.
b) We will extend assistance for the long-term organisational development of community-based organisations (CBOs). The focus will be on CDCs, as they are
intended as a link to district-level government and now
exist in almost all communities in the country, they will
continue to receive support through the NSP, and they
enjoy high levels of acceptance and legitimacy by communities. However, relevant and existing interest based
CBOs (not included under the other strategic areas) will
also be supported in order to ensure that all members in
the community are participating and being represented
in democratic organisations. The support to CBOs and
CDCs will be based on participatory organisational assessments to clarify each CBO’s vision and mandate and
establish an agenda for their capacity development. We
will assist CBOs to develop democratic structures and
practices to ensure representation and wider participation.
29
We will also facilitate thematic and technical trainings.
c) We will support CDCs and CBOs to increase access
to information and to raise awareness in the community
of human rights and development policy. We will ensure
that communities receive all relevant information in understandable formats regarding rights, national laws and
policies, and the roles and responsibilities of local authorities, and local government policies, including budgets.
CBOs will be supported to develop accessible, creative
and culturally appropriate means of communicating with
their constituents and community partners.
d) We will act as mediator in linkages, and planning and
policy platforms between civil society and local authorities, primarily at the community and district levels. We
will assist CBOs to design and carry out advocacy and
lobbying campaigns directed at local authorities in favour
of their members’ rights and legitimate claims to community resources and services. We will also encourage
the participation and voice of CBOs by supporting them
to form provincial or national advocacy networks or enter
into broader civil society coordination bodies engaged in
policy dialogue.
e) Mutual accountability will be strengthened by means
of facilitation of community-based social audits and
joint planning, monitoring and budgeting involving
CDCs, CBOs and local authorities. Collaboration with
local media, particularly radio, will be fostered to publicise these events and mobilise community participation.
Outcome 2 | Local authorities are more accountable and able to respond to the demands of local communities
The Community Development Council
in Qaflani village in Samangan holds
a meeting after the completion of a
project in the village.
Photo | Zamanullah
30
a) Concentrating on district level structures of local governance, we will assist both representative and executive
bodies to clarify their roles and define their responsibilities to one another and publicly to the communities which
they serve.
b) We will facilitate participatory needs assessments
with representative bodies and executive bodies relevant
to our strategic objectives to define a programme of capacity development assistance to the local authorities. A
starting point will be facilitating greater and more regular contact and communication between elected district
councils and CDCs and CDC clusters at the community
level, as well as with a range of CBOs representing local women, persons with disabilities and others who are
socially excluded. At the same time, closer communication between executive bodies will be established with
community-based management committees, user groups
and other CBOs.
c) We will offer a range of thematic and technical trainings to strengthen local authorities’ knowledge and expertise in core functions such as planning, budgeting,
administration and management, as well as their understanding of rights-based approaches, Afghan national and
provincial development strategies, and the development
aid coordination system in Afghanistan.
We will stimulate the responsiveness of local governments
by facilitating the application of newly learned knowledge
to joint planning, budgeting and monitoring with CDCs
and other community-based organizations. In addition,
we will assist executive bodies at district level to develop
feasible action plans based upon development strategies submitted by district-level representative bodies.
D) Local authorities will be assisted to engage in debate
and policy dialogue with local communities and their
CBOs on the full range of issues identified as priorities
by communities. On the basis of participation in forums
such as round tables, conferences and social audits – as
well as more informal, but regular communication with
CBOs – district authorities will be assisted to develop
5
more responsive and practicable development strategies.
E) In order to strengthen development cooperation at the
local level, and the flow of resources from the centre to
their point of application in communities, we will encourage local authorities to enter into cross-sector coalitions
with CBOs, NGOs and other development actors.
Public and Political Commitment
Strategic Objective | Public and political commitment in Sweden and Europe for
the rights of the people of Afghanistan
Achieving this strategic objective requires strengthening the ability of SCA members to engage in campaign activities such as recruiting members and fundraising. Key factors are assistance in campaign
coordination and access to relevant information on Afghanistan and SCA activities.
Building long term public commitment requires a strengthened relation between the public in Sweden
and societal structures in Afghanistan. This can be contributed to by professional exchange and relations between SCA, NGOs and institutions in Sweden and Afghanistan.
Improving policy making, in Afghanistan, Sweden and Europe requires informed decision making. To
achieve this, the voices of SCA’s target groups, mainly found within civil society, have to be strengthened
in order for them to influence those in power as well as the design of policies, structures and systems.
SCA’s advocacy shall reflect its core values and be founded in the experiences of development cooperation. In Afghanistan, the main focus is on rights within the sectors of operation, while advocacy in
Sweden and at the international level can address issues concerning the broader development of Afghanistan and rights and situation of the people of Afghanistan.
Outcome 1 | Well informed SCA members, decision makers and NGOs in Sweden increasingly raise public awareness, strengthen
popular engagement and demand official
support for the rights of the people of
Afghanistan
their resources with our work in communication, fundraising, professional exchange and networking.
activity based groups throughout Sweden can raise
awareness about rights and development in Afghanistan.
We will strengthen members´ ability to make themselves
heard and engage in fundraising for Afghanistan. Members will be equipped with training in communication,
knowledge about conditions in Afghanistan and up to
date analyses on recent trends in Afghan development.
We will also support them with campaign materials and
coordination of communication. Members will be encouraged to engage with local-level actors, e.g. media or
local organizations.
c) We will influence the agenda for public debate in Sweden, provide and channel quality information about Afghanistan and put the rights of the people of Afghanistan
in focus. We will form partnerships with other NGOs, institutions and individuals with influence in public debate
that share our commitment to Afghanistan. In such partnerships, we will run joint public awareness campaigns.
We will seek to highlight the results that can be achieved
and the importance of long term development cooperation. Campaign elements include, but are not limited to,
international and national conferences and events, lectures, social media campaigning, traditional media and
fundraising. Fundraising is essential in order to secure
funds for this strategy, but also important when raising
awareness of our work in Afghanistan.
b) We will strive to increase the number of members. To
be a member in SCA is to participate in change, and we
will offer members diverse ways of expressing their commitment. We will value members capabilities and match
d) We will put specific emphasis on building relations
with Swedish NGOs that are involved or want to get involved inside Afghanistan. We will seek collaboration
and exchange of experiences with organisations that can
a) We will ensure that members, local committees and
31
fill operational gaps in Afghanistan. We will also communicate progress of development work in partnership with
these NGOs.
e) We will strengthen links between Sweden and Afghan-
istan. Professional groups that are active within our service delivery work, e.g. teachers and nurses, will be invited to participate in structured exchange meetings with
professionals in Sweden. We will coordinate the exchange
providing training and organizing conferences in Sweden
and Afghanistan. Contact and exchange of ideas and experiences will also be established between professional
groups, our staff and members. Personal experience and
involvement by Swedish professionals contribute to the
public commitment to the people of Afghanistan within
relevant professional groups. SCA will seek to utilize the
professional experience of its staff in Afghanistan – whether Afghan, Swedish or International – for information and
awareness raising purposes in Sweden whenever possible.
Outcome 2 | Donors and policy makers make
decisions informed by SCA’s policy and advocacy work
a) We will use our experience and knowledge to show
how policymaking can better support rural communities, women, children and persons with disabilities in Afghanistan. We will build relations with donors and policy
makers and look for alliances and partnerships with e.g.
NGOs and think tanks to strengthen impact of advocacy
work.
B) We will enter into policy dialogue with donors or policy makers on specific issues. We will promote the rights
of target groups and hold donors to account on commitments made to support Afghanistan. We will also communicate challenges and risk and broaden policy makers and donor’s analyses of the Afghan context. We will
listen to target groups in Afghanistan to understand what
opportunities and challenges need to be brought to the
32
attention of policy makers in Afghanistan, Sweden and
Europe. When opportunities exist, we will enter into policy dialogue in coalition with others, either through wellestablished advocacy networks or through ad hoc partnerships around a specific issue or advocacy opportunities.
c) We will use media and public awareness raising work,
outlined under 5.1, to emphasize key points raised in
policy dialogue. We will make sure that media and our
members are informed and equipped to react to important policy changes at key moments in decision-making
processes.
d) We will base this advocacy work on solid and well
researched information. We will engage in partnerships
with think tanks and academic institutions to develop
analysis and generate information. Some of this work
will aim to produce policy briefings targeting specific issues or policy processes. Other collaborations will work
to develop deeper understanding of our results or specific
challenges we encounter in our operational environment.
The experiences of our staff and the analysis generated in
the new Monitor & Evaluation system will also be used
to extract information for advocacy.
e) In Afghanistan, we will work through advocacy net-
works and specific issue-based coalitions to influence
donor decision making with regards to coordination and
management of aid. In Sweden, we will work with all
stakeholders involved in supporting Afghanistan, with
a specific focus on Sida’s and the Swedish Ministry for
Foreign Affairs’ strategy for support to Afghanistan and
their involvement in aid effectiveness policy making and
the Kabul process. In Sweden, we will also work through
networks and NGO working groups communicating with
the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Sida on
policies regulating support to fragile states. In Europe,
SCA will work through NGO networks and NGO coalitions targeting primarily EC involvement in Afghanistan.
Annex 1. Acronyms and abbreviations used in the text
AMP
ANDS
ANSF
AOG
APRP
BPHS
CBE
CBO
CDC
CEDAW
CSO
DCC
DPO
DRB
EC
EPHS
EVAW
GDP
GoA
HB
IED
MDG
MFA
MoE
MoLSAMD
MoPH
MRRD
MS
NATO
NGO
NPP
NSP
PHD
RBA
RBM
Sida
SCA
SMC
SMO
TMAF
UNCRPD
UNSCR
Aid Management Policy
Afghan National Development Strategy
Afghan National Security Forces
Armed Opposition Group
Afghan Peace and Reintegration Programme
Basic Package of Health Services
Community-Based Education
Community-Based Organisation
Community Development Council
Convention to Eliminate all forms of Discrimination Against Women
Civil Society Organisation
District Coordination Council
Disabled People’s Organisation
District Representative Body
European Commission
Essential Package of Health Services
Elimination of Violence Against Women
Gross Domestic Product
Government of Afghanistan
Hub Schools
Improvised Explosive Device
Millennium Development Goal
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Education
Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Martyrs, and Disabled
Ministry of Public Health
Ministry of Reconstruction and Rural Development
Model School
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
Non-Governmental Organisation
National Priority Programme
National Solidarity Programme
Provincial Health Department
Rights-Based Approach
Results-Based Management
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan
School Management Committee
Stockholm Management Office
Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
UN Security Council Resolution
33
Annex 2. Sources used in researching the Strategic Plan
The strategic plan has relied heavily for its information and statistics on a wide range of national and sector development policies and strategies, National Priority Programmes, and aid management policies, issued by the Government
of Afghanistan and its ministries. Much use has also been made of donor country strategies for Afghanistan, and also
statistics provided by the Afghanistan Statistics Organisation. Full use has also been made of the main human rights
instruments and relevant Afghan laws. In addition, the following sources have been referred to for statistical data
and analysis:
ACBAR (2011) Health and Education in Afghanistan:
An Empty Gift, Oct 7, 2011, Kabul
Afghan Women’s Network (2009) Gender-based Violence in Afghanistan: An annual report
AREU (2011) District Councils: The Missing Middle of
Local Governance; proceedings from an AREU roundtable discussion, 27 June 2011
Azarbaijani-Moghaddam, S.(2010): A Study of Gender
Equity Through the National Solidarity Programme’s
Community Development Councils; DACAAR: Kabul
Bauck, P., Dohmen , S., Andresen, J. & Lexow, J (2011),
Gender Review Report, Afghanistan; Norad Report
14/2011; NORAD /Sida
Blankenship, Erin (2012), Oxfam America – PTRO
Contested Spaces Research Findings: Afghanistan,
PTRO: Kabul, draft report.
Central Statistics Organisation / Unicef (2012) Afghanistan Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2010/2011, 6
June 2012, Kabul
Childs Rights Advocacy Forum (2013) Afghanistan,
Draft Universal Periodic Review on Rights of the Child;
June 2013
Cortright D. & Wall, K (2012) Enhancing Security and
Human Rights in Afghanistan; University of Notre
Dame, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies,
August 2012
Cordesman, A.H., & Mann, S.T. (2012) Afghanistan:
The Failing Economics of Transition, 4th working draft,
20 July 2012, CSIS. Cordesman, A.H. (2013) The Afghan War in 2013:
Meeting the Challenges of Transition; working draft, 1
April 2013, CSIS
Counterpart International (2011) 2011 Afghanistan Civil
Society Assessment; December 2011
34
Creighton, James, L. (2012) Afghanistan: Mobilizing for
Democracy, Wold Policy Journal, Fall 2012
Currie, S., Azfar, P & Flower, R.C. (2007), “A Bold
New Beginning for Midwifery in Afghanistan,” Midwifery, Vol. 2007, 23, 226–234
L., Darwish, S. & Pardis, N. R. (2011,) Conflict Analysis of SCA’s Activities in Afghanistan, Juluy 2012;
PTRO: Kabul
Dorronsoro, Gilles (2012), Waiting for the Taliban in
Afghanistan, Carnegie Papers: Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, September 2012
GoA & MoF (2012), Aid Coordination and Effectiveness: From Emergency Reconstruction to Transition and
Beyond, Nov, 2012
Human Rights Watch (2012), “I Had To Run Away”:
The imprisonment of women and girls for “moral
crimes” in Afghanistan, March 2012
Human Rights Watch (2009) “We Have the Promises of
the World”: Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2012), Towards
Self-Reliance: Strategic Vision for the Transformation
Decade
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2012), Concept Paper
on Implementing Tokyo Framework
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2010), Millennium
Development Goals 2010 Report; October 2010
ICG (2012) Afghanistan: The Long Hard Road to the
2014 Transition; Asia Report No 236, 8 October 2012
ILO (2012) Afghanistan: Time to move to Sustainable
Jobs: Study on the state of employment in Afghanistan;
summary report, May 2012
Kabeer, Naila et al (2011) Afghan Values or Women’s
Rights? Gendered Narratives about Continuity and
Change in Urban Afghanistan; IDS Working Paper Volume 2011, 387; IDS: Brighton
Totakhail, M. L., (2011), Foreign Aid and Economic
Development in Afghanistan; a thesis for Masters of
Public Policy
Kantor, P. & Pain, A. (2012) Rethinking Rural Poverty
Reduction in Afghanistan; Policy Note Seroes, October
2012; AREU: Kabul
Tokyo Declaration: Partnership for Self-Reliance in
Afghanistan from Transition to Transformation, 8 July
2012
Kantor, P. & Pain, A. (2012) Running Out of Options:
Tracing Rural Afghan Livelihoods; Synthesis Paper
Series, January 2012; AREU: Kabul
Tarni, J-F. & Bakhshi, P. (2006) National Disability
Survey in Afghanistan; Handicap International
Khan, A (2012) Women and Gender in Afghanistan;
Civil-Military Fusion Centre, February 2012
Michael, M. (2011) Too Good To Be True: An assessment of health system progress in Afghanistan 20022010; University of Queensland / DANIDA
Ministry of Finance (2010), Development Cooperation
Report 2010.
Newbrander, W (2007), Rebuilding Health Systems and
Providing Health Services in Fragile States, Occasional
Paper no 7, 2007; Management Sciences for Health:
NGO working in education (2011), High Stakes: Girls’
Education in Afghanistan; Joint briefing paper, 24 February 2011
PTRO (2012), Reducing Gender-Based Violence? An
Impact Study of SCA’s Progarammes in Afghanistan;
December 2012; PTRO: Kabul
PTRO (2012), CSOs Mapping Exercise; Tawanmandi ;
9 February 2012
Saltmarshe, D. & Medhi, A. (2011), Local Governance
in Afghanistan: A view from the ground; Synthesis
Paper, June 2011; AREU: Kabul
UNDP (2011) Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future
for All; Human Development Report 2011
UNICEF (2011) Country Factsheets: Child Protection;
Education; Health; Polio; WASH, November 2011
USAID (2009 Afghanistan Private sector Health Survey;
Global Health Technical Assistance Project, May 2009
USIP (2012) Myths and Misconceptions in the Afghan
Transition; Peace Brief 123, April 9 2012
Waldman, R., Strong, L. & Wali, A. (2006) Afghanistan’s Health System Since 2001; Briefing Paper,
AREU: Kabul
WHO/World Bank (2011) World Report on Disability
Wilkens, A (2013) Missing the Target: A report on the
Swedish Commitment to Women, Peace and Security
in Afghanistan; Kvinna till Kvinna / Operation 1325 /
SCA, November 2012
World Bank (2012 & 2013) Afghanistan in Transition:
Looking Beyond 2014. Volume 1: Overview; May 2012
+ Update, April 2013.
World Bank (2012), Afghanistan Economic Update,
World Bank, October 2012
Sheikh, M.K., & Greenwood T.J. (2013), Taliban Talks:
Past Present and Prospects for the US, Afghanistan and
Pakistan; DIIS Report, June 2013
World Bank (2012) Conflict, Security and Development;
World Development Report 2011; World Bank: Washington
Stapleton, B. J. (2012), Beating a Retreat: Prospects
for the Transition Process in Afghanistan, May 2012;
Afghan Analysts Network: Kabul
World Bank (2012), Interim Strategy Note for IR of
Afghanistan for the Period FY12-FY14; March 9 2012.
World Bank / Ministry of Economy, IRA (2010) Poverty
Status in Afghanistan: A profile based on National Risk
and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA) 2007/08; July
2010
INTRAC (2012), ‘Theory of Change: what’s it all
about?, in ONTRAC, vol. 51, May 2012; INTRAC:
Oxford
OHCHR (2012), Report of the Special Rapporteur on
violence against women, its causes and consequences
World Health Organisation , Eastern Mediterranean
Regional Office ,Report of the Health System Review
Mission-Afghanistan, July 9-18, 2006
35
Annex 3: Results Framework
Note: In Q4 of 2013, baselines will be added to the furthest possible extent, based on existing sources. During the
elaboration of baselines, it is possible that some indicators may have to be adapted due to unavailability of data –
with priority on ensuring that SCA has a fully measurable results framework on which we can accurate report. In
2014, programmes will be engaged in setting realistic targets, and monitoring plan will be developed.
Strategic Objective
Indicators
Means of Verification
Baselines
Targets
2014
SO1. Equitable access to and
utilisation of health services
by women, children, persons
with disabilities and rural
communities.
Outcome 1. SCA target groups
and communities have a
fuller understanding of how
to prevent illness and improve
their health.
Outcome 2. Health services
increasingly meet the specific
needs of the target communities with a focus on women
and girls, with and without
disabilities and marginalised
groups.
Outcome 3. Communities are
more actively involved in the
promotion of accountable and
responsive health services.
36
Availability of quality basic
health services, both physically and culturally adapted to
the specific needs of women,
children, and persons with disabilities, male and female, in
target rural communities, by
end 2017
% of community/catchment area using SCA health
services, disaggregated by
type of health service and by
target groups
Evaluation reports (mid-term
and final evaluations); clinic
statistics
Evaluation reports;
Clinic statistics;
Reports of local health
authorities;
Existing health services in target
rural communities, based on assessment of barriers to access.
% utilization of health services by
population
# of target groups or communities (or, alternatively, #
of community health workers,
male and female), that have
demonstrated new ways of
preventing common diseases
by the end of 2017
Project monitoring reports;
Reports of local health
authorities;
Reports from field visits and
FGDs;
Evaluation reports
Survey of common diseases prevalent in the target communities;
Info on the capacities of target
communities in preventing prevalent
diseases.
# of HHs in target communities which have constructed
own latrines by the end of
2017
Project monitoring reports;
Reports from field visits and
FGDs;
Evaluation reports
# of HHs in target communities with
own latrines.
Proportion of the population
in target communities which
are practicing handwashing
and with the use of soap after
using the latrines by the end
of 2017
Project monitoring reports;
Reports from field visits and
FGDs;
Evaluation reports
Survey on HHs practicing handwashing and with the use of soap.
% of households in target
communities with access to
health services, by type, by
the end of 2017, e.g. health
services for mother and child,
health services for TB for both
women and men and persons
with disability, etc.
Project monitoring reports;
Reports from local health
authorities;
Reports from field visits and
FGDs;
Evaluation reports
% of households in target communities with access to health services
by type; or
Types of health services that are
currently available to the target
communities.
% decrease in maternal
mortality due to pregnancy
and childbirth-related causes
in target communities by the
end of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Clinic statistics;
Reports by the local health
authorities;
Evaluation reports
Current rate of maternal mortality
due to pregnancy and childbirthrelated causes in target communities.
% decrease in incidence of
child mortality, male and
female, from disease-related
causes in target communities
by end of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Clinic statistics;
Reports by the local health
authorities;
Evaluation reports
Current rate of child mortality, male
and female, from disease-related
causes in target communities.
# of communities with
functional health shuras able
to identify and articulate the
health needs of their respective communities
Monitoring reports;
Field visit reports and reports
from FGDs with community
health shuras;
Evaluation reports, organisational assessment of shuras
# of communities with functional
health shuras;
Quality of the capacity of the existing community health shuras.
# of functional community
health shuras able to access
health services for their
respective communities from
local health administrations by
the end of 2015
Monitoring reports;
Field visit reports and reports
from FGDs with community
health shuras;
Evaluation reports
What kind of health services are
present in the target communities?
What is the quality of these health
services?
2015
2016
2017
Strategic Objective
SO2. Equal access to quality
educational opportunities
Outcome 1. Strengthened
delivery of education at the
community level, adapted to
the needs of all children
Outcome 2. Increased demand
for education amongst the
target communities
Outcome 3. Enhanced accountability of government for
delivering quality education
towards parents and communities
Indicators
Means of Verification
Baselines
# of functional community
health shuras able to access
special health facilities to
cater to the health needs of
women, girls and boys, and
persons with disabilities,
male and female, by the end
of 2017.
Monitoring reports;
Records from local health
authorities;
Records from community
health shuras (if available);
Field visits and FGD reports
(FGDs with women and
PwDs);
Evaluation reports
What kind of health services for
women, children and persons with
disabilities are present in the target
communities? What is the quality of
these health facilities?
Percentage of boys, girls,
and children with disabilities
enrolled in quality educational
facilities in target communities by the end of 2017
Monitoring reports, Data from
PED, Evaluation reports (midterm and final evaluations)
Percentages on access disaggregated.
Definition of access to be interpreted
broadly (physical and culturally
accepted)
% increase of students in level
5, male and female, including
students with disabilities,
in each school in covered
districts, with proficiency in
reading and writing by end of
each school year
School records,
Monitoring visits;
Reports from field observations;
Evaluation reports
% of students in level 5, male and
female, including students with disabilities, in each school in covered
districts, with demonstrated proficiency in reading and writing.
Rationalized ratio between
teachers and students, for
both boys and girls, in each
school in target communities
at each year
Monitoring reports;
School records;
Evaluation reports
Current ratio of teachers vis-à-vis the
number of students, for both boys
and girls, in each school in target
communities.
% increase in communities
with access to CBEs, including girls annexes, in covered
districts by the end of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Reports from field visits;
Evaluation reports.
# of communities in covered districts
with access to CBEs, including girls’
annexes; description of the quality of
these schools.
# of communities with functional CECs or SMCs which
are able to motivate parents to
send their children to school,
or which are able to advocate
for the delivery of education
facilities for their respective
communities, by the end of
2017
Monitoring reports;
Reports from local education
authorities;
Reports from interviews and
FGDs;
Evaluation reports, organisational assessment of CEC/
SMC
# of communities with existing
CECs or SMCs;
Description of the quality of the
capacity of these CECs or SMCs
% increase in the number of
students, male and female,
and students with disabilities, in each school in target
communities able to finish the
school year, by end of each
school year (retention rates)
School records;
Monitoring reports;
Reports from interviews and/
or FGDs;
Evaluation reports
Rate of students, male and female,
and students with disabilities who
finish the school year, comparative
for the last four years.
Decreased incidence in child
marriages, especially involving girl children, in target
communities at end of each
school year
Monitoring reports;
Reports from field visits,
interviews, FGDs;
Evaluation report
# of reported child marriages in
target communities annually comparative for the last four years.
% increase in the number of
teachers, male and female, in
covered districts, completing
graduate or post-graduate degrees or any other specialized
training by the end of 2017
Monitoring reports; Reports
from interviews;
Evaluation reports
# of teachers, male and female, in
covered districts who have graduate
or post-graduate degrees or with
specialized training.
% increase of students at
each level, male and female,
including students with
disabilities, passing the qualifying examinations for the
next level by the end of each
school year
Monitoring reports;
School records;
Evaluation reports
% of students at each level, male and
female, including students with disabilities, in each school in covered
districts passing the qualifying
examinations for the next level at the
end of the year, comparative for the
last four years.
# of communities with access
to specialized educational
facilities, by type, provided
by government by the end
of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Reports from field visits;
Reports from interviews with
CECs and local education
authorities;
Evaluation reports
# of communities in covered
districts with access to specialized
educational facilities; Description
of the quality of these specialized
educational facilities.
Targets
2014
2015
2016
2017
37
Strategic Objective
SO3. Women, persons with
disabilities and vulnerable
rural households are making
a secure means of living that
provides resilience against
shocks and emergencies.
Outcome 1. Adult members
of rural communities have
strengthened capacities and
improved access to resources
to diversifying their household
incomes.
Outcome 2. Community-based
organizations are promoting
rural livelihoods
SO 4. Community members
are actively engaged in
decision-making, influencing
the development of their
communities and are able to
hold relevant stakeholders
to account
Outcome 1. Rural communities, including women,
children and persons with disabilities, are well represented
and participate in democratic
community organizations and
decision making.
38
Indicators
Means of Verification
Baselines
# of adults, male and female,
including persons with
disabilities, in target communities, engaged in new
and diversified livelihood
activities (specified by type),
by the end of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Field visit reports;
Evaluation reports
# of trainable able-bodied adults
in target communities, including
persons with disabilities.
% increase in HH income and
expenditure among vulnerable
rural households in target
communities by the end of
2017
Monitoring reports;
Reports on HH surveys or
FGDs with the target groups;
Evaluation reports.
Current average income of vulnerable rural HHs in target communities. (Criteria for determining vulnerability must be developed.)
# of women-headed rural HHs
in target communities able to
support basic family needs by
the end of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Reports on HH surveys or
FGDs with the target groups;
Evaluation reports.
# of women-headed rural HHs in
target communities
Proportion of rural HHs in
target communities, including
(disaggregated) HHs with
persons with disabilities and
women-headed HHs, with
demonstrated capacity to
engage in new and diversified
livelihood activities
Reports from HH surveys or
FGDs;
Midterm and final evaluations
# of rural HHs in target communities, disaggregated.
Proportion of rural HH in
target communities (disaggregated), accessing available
resources (training and credit).
Monitoring reports; FGDs
with target groups;, midterm
and final evaluations
# of rural HHs in target communities
accessing training and credit
# of functional CBOs in
target rural communities with
proficiency in the project
management cycle by the end
of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Reports on FGDs with the
target groups;
Evaluation reports.
# of CBOs in target rural communities with capacity for PCM.
# of functional CBOs in
target rural communities with
technical skills/knowledge
related to rural livelihood by
the end of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Reports on FGDs with the
target groups;
Evaluation reports.
# of CBOs in target rural communities with capacity on rural
livelihoods.
# of vulnerable rural HHs,
including women-headed
HHs, benefited by the
CBO-government-private
sector partnerships on rural
livelihoods, by type of benefit,
e.g. capacity or skills development, access to market,
access to capital, etc.
Monitoring reports;
Reports on HH surveys or on
FGDs with the target groups;
Evaluation reports.
# of vulnerable rural HHs in target
communities which are currently
being assisted by CBOs regarding
rural livelihoods.
Evaluation reports (mid-term
and final evaluations)
# of existing community organizations in target communities;
Description of the quality of these
organizations: are the women,
children and persons with disabilities
represented? Are the representatives
from women, children and persons
with disabilities able to articulate
their issues and concerns?
Evaluation reports
# of community initiatives responsive to the specific needs of women,
children and persons with disabilities
and other vulnerable sectors supported by the CDCs and local
authorities
Monitoring reports;
Reports on FGDs with the
target groups;
Evaluation reports.
# of functional democratic organizations existing in the target communities (note: “democratic” should be
defined);
Description of the quality of these
current community organizations,
especially in terms of the representation of women, children and persons
with disabilities.
# of functional community
organizations where men,
women, children and persons
with disabilities articulate
their rights with the CDCs and
local authorities
# of community initiatives
responsive to the specific
needs of women, children and
persons with disabiities and
other vulnerable sectors supported by the CDCs and local
authorities
# of functional democratic
community organizations in
target communities organized,
by type, where representatives
of women, children and persons with disabilities identify,
and respond to, issues and
concerns related to their needs
and rights, by end of 2017
Targets
2014
2015
2016
2017
Strategic Objective
Outcome 2. Local authorities
are more accountable and able
to respond to the demands of
local communities.
SO 5. Public and political
commitment in Sweden and
Europe for the rights of the
people of Afghanistan
Outcome 5.1 Well informed
SCA members, decision makers and NGOs in Sweden raise
public awareness, strengthen
popular engagement and
demand official support for
the rights of the people of
Afghanistan.
Outcome 5.2 Donors and
policy makers make decisions
informed by SCA’s policy and
advocacy work.
Indicators
Means of Verification
Baselines
# of trained women-leaders,
children-leaders and leaders
of persons with disabilities
representing their respective
sectors who participate in
decision-making processes
in appropriate venues, e.g.
CDCs, including decisions on
the budget, by end of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Reports on FGDs with the
target groups;
Evaluation reports.
# of existing women-leaders,
children-leaders and leaders of
persons with disabilities in CDCs
and other community organizations
in target communities in any CBOs;
Quality of the capacity of these
identified leaders.
Local authorities in covered
districts who facilitate effective dialogues with communities by the end of 2017.
Monitoring reports;
Reports on FGDs with local
authorities and target communities;
Evaluation reports.
Identifying local authorities in
covered districts with demonstrated
capacity for conducting effective
community consultations and dialogues (note: “effective community
consultations and dialogues needs to
be defined).
Local authorities in covered
districts reporting to their
constituent/ stakeholder communities on matters related to
development initiatives in the
districts, by the end of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Reports on FGDs with local
authorities and target communities;
Evaluation reports.
Identifying local authorities in
covered districts with demonstrated capacity for reporting its
accomplishments to their constituent
communities.
Local authorities in covered
districts tangibly supportive
of community initiatives, e.g.
policy, budget, by the end
of 2017
Monitoring reports;
Reports on FGDs with local
authorities and target communities;
Evaluation reports.
Sustained commitment by
the Swedish public to support
the rights of the people of
Afghanistan in 2014-2017.
Evaluation reports; other
relevant studies.
Assessment of public support in
Sweden to the rights of the people of
Afghanistan.
Policies enacted or approved
by the Swedish government
support the rights of the
people of Afghanistan in
2014-2017.
Policy documents and other
instruments.
Assessment of current government
policies on Afghanistan to identify
gaps in its support to the rights of the
people of Afghanistan.
Increased institutional donor
commitment to SCA work in
Afghanistan in 2014-2017.
Agreements; approved project
proposals.
Assessment of current institutional
donor commitment to SCA.
Increased private/business
world donor commitment to
SCA work in Afghanistan in
2014-2017
# of private/business world
donor regularly and long-term
supporting monetary
Assessment of current private/
business world donor commitment
to SCA
Enhanced participation of
members, male and female, in
various activities promoting
the rights of the people of
Afghanistan in 2014-2017.
Activity reports; minutes of
meetings; attendance lists.
Assessment of SCA activities in
Sweden promoting the rights of
the Afghan people involving SCA
members.
Sustained/enhanced coverage
in (Swedish) press/media,
including social media, of
the rights of the people of
Afghanistan in 2014-2017
# of articles/other media on
the rights of the people of
Afghanistan
Assessment of current coverage
# of NGOs collaborating
with SCA in implementing
activities in Sweden to raise
awareness on the rights of
the people of Afghanistan in
2014-2017.
Activity reports; minutes of
meetings; attendance lists.
Assessment of SCA activities in
Sweden promoting the rights of the
Afghan people involving Swedish
NGOs.
Sustained commitment to
SCA by # of existing institutional donors in Sweden and
in EC in 2014-2017.
Approved project proposals;
MOUs or MOAs; TORs
Current # of institutional donors in
Sweden and in EC
Policies supportive of SCA
initiatives in Afghanistan approved by institutional donors
and policy makers in Sweden
and in EC in 2014-2017.
Approved policy documents;
approved project proposals;
MOUs or MOAs; TORs
Assessment of policies related to
Afghanistan by current institutional
donors in Sweden and in EC.
Targets
2014
2015
2016
2017
Existing community initiatives supported by local authorities in covered
districts; and/or,
What current policy measures in the
districts provide windows of opportunity for community development
initiatives?
39
AFGHAN WOMEN 2022 | 12 year old Nargis Qaderi from Bibi Amina Girls School in Kunduz, painted her vision for the future of the Afghan woman and won first price in a
painting competition conducted in SCA’s schools in 2012.
Svenska Afghanistankommittén
[email protected]
www.sak.se
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan
[email protected]
www.swedishcommittee.org