District Government Assessment

DISTRICT GOVERNMENT ASSESSMENT AFGHANISTAN LOCAL GOVERNANCE AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT (LGCD) PROGRAM

USAID Contract Number: DFD-I-00-05-00250 DISCLAIMER: United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.

This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by the Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organization (APPRO) for LGCD.

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Acknowledgements

APPRO would like to thank the IDLG, Provincial and District Governors in Badghis, Farah, Ghazni, Helmand, Herat, Kabul, Kandahar, Khost, Laghman, Logar, Nangarhar, Paktiya, and Zabul for their collaboration in this research. We appreciate the time and effort that the clerks at the District Offices, representatives of line ministries in the provinces for this research and in Kabul spent with APPRO discussing the program and sharing their experiences of processing community petitions. Thanks also go to the field teams stationed in Jalalabad, Ghazni, Helmand, Herat, Kabul, and Kandahar that collected information in those provinces. Thanks to Ahmad Shaheer Anil, Ehsan Saadat, Nafasgull Karimi, and Zarghona Saifi for coordinating field work and processing the data. Ana Hozyainova and Saeed Parto wrote this report. Andrea Janes edited this report. This work was funded by DAI/LGCD.

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List of Acronyms

ALGAP Afghanistan Local Governance Assistance Project

ANDS Afghanistan National Development Strategy

APPRO Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organization

ARD Associates in Rural Development, Inc

AREU Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit

ASGP Afghanistan Sub-‐national Governance Programme

ASOP Afghanistan Social Outreach Program

ASP Afghanistan Stabilization Program

CDC Community Development Council

CIDA Canadian International Development Agency

CRDA/Japan Children Rights Defence Association

DAA District Administration Assembly

DAI Development Alternatives, Inc

DDA District Development Assembly

DDA District Development Assembly

DfID Department for International Development (UK)

DRRD Department of Rural Rehabilitation and Development

EU European Union

HARDP Helmand Agriculture And Rural Development Programme

IARCSC Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission

IDLG Independent Directorate…

(I)NGO (International) Non-‐Governmental Organization

ISAF International Security Assistance Force

LGCD Local Governance….

MAIL Ministry of Agricultures, Irrigation, and Livestock

MDG Millennium Development Goals

MOI Ministry of Interior

MRRD Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development

NABDP National Area Based Development Programme

NGO Non-‐governmental Organization

NSP National Solidarity Programme

OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

PC Provincial Councils

PDC Provincial Development Committee

PRT Provincial Reconstruction Team

SMC School Management Committees

UNAMA United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

USAID United State Agency for International Development

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Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6

1. INTRODUCTION 9

2. SUB-‐NATIONAL GOVERNANCE IN AFGHANISTAN 10

2.1. LEGAL FOUNDATION 10 2.2. KEY DONORS AND IMPLEMENTING AGENCIES 11 2.3. STRUCTURES OF SUB-‐NATIONAL GOVERNANCE 12 2.4. SUB-‐NATIONAL GOVERNANCE PARAMETERS AND DYNAMICS 17 2.5. RESPONSIBILITIES OF DISTRICT GOVERNORS 20

3. RATIONALE FOR THIS ASSESSMENT 24

4. OBJECTIVES 25

5. METHODOLOGY 27

5.1 DISTRICT SELECTION 27 5.2 UNIT OF ANALYSIS 28 5.3 RESEARCH TOOLS 28 5.4 CHALLENGES IN DATA COLLECTION 29 5.5 DATA PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS 31 5.6 STAFFING 32

6. FINDINGS 33

6.1. STRAINED PUBLIC RELATIONS 33 6.2. MULTIPLE PROCESSES 34 6.2.1. INITIATION 37 6.2.2. RECORDING, APPROVAL, FUNDING AND IMPLEMENTATION 37 6.3. DISTRICT GOVERNANCE MATURITY 41 6.3.1. DISTRICT GOVERNORS – FROM FIGUREHEADS TO FACILITATORS 42 6.3.2. EMERGENCE OF DDA AND DRRD AS KEY AGENCIES 44 6.3.3. PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAMS (PRTS) 46 6.3.4. INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND BEST PRACTICES 48

7. CONCLUSIONS 49

8. RECOMMENDATIONS 53

REFERENCES 55

APPENDIX 1: LIST OF INTERVIEWEES 56

APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW GUIDE 57

APPENDIX 3: MONITORING FORMS 59

APPENDIX 4: PROCESS MAPS 60

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List of Boxes, Figures and Tables Box 1: District Governance at a Glance_________________________________________________ 22 Figure 1: Optimal Institutional Structure for Sub-‐national Governance _______________________ 19 Figure 2: Administrative and Political Structure of National and Sub-‐national Governance________ 20 Figure 3: Districts with consistent petitions processing within the province____________________ 36 Table 1: Security rating of the provinces for the assessment________________________________ 27 Table 2: Steps in the process of submitting petitions______________________________________ 34 Table 3: Process matrix for submitting community petitions________________________________ 35 Table 4: Number of petitions on file in DAI office ________________________________________ 38 Table 5: Reported number of community petitions _______________________________________ 40 Table 6: Indicators of good governance used by various institutions _________________________ 41 Table 7: Meetings with communities and residency status of the district governor______________ 43 Table 8: PRTs in the districts _________________________________________________________ 47

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Executive Summary

District Governors are a part of the sub-‐national governance system in Afghanistan. Their

current role is to represent the central government at the local level and to address the

needs of the communities in their district. District Governors interact with a range of other

actors in the sub-‐national governance system in Afghanistan. They officially report to

Provincial Governors, and work in close partnership with District Development Assemblies

(DDAs), and line ministries at the district level. According to the Constitution all District

Governors must be locally elected. To date, however, there have been no District Governors

elections in Afghanistan. The main objective of this study was to document the role of

District Governors in addressing, or not addressing, social and economic development needs

expressed by their constituent communities through petitions.

The key data collection tool for this rapid assessment was semi-‐structured interviews. These

interviews were conducted in 33 Districts in Badghis, Farah, Ghazni, Helmand, Herat, Kabul,

Kandahar, Khost, Laghman, Logar, Nangarhar, Paktika, Uruzgan, and Zabul provinces.

Formally, District Governors are expected to act as a key part of the community petitioning

process. A key broad finding from this assessment is that the Governors are not accountable

to their constituencies and their largely arbitrary responses are widely varied across the

districts. Part of the explanation for the current actual role of the District Governors is to be

found in the fact that they are appointed, rather than elected, and as such they largely work

to promote the interests of their patrons and/or social networks rather than serve their

would-‐be constituents. Another explanation for this seemingly random behavior or

performance could be the fact that District Governors do not have direct access to financial

resources to respond to the declared needs of the communities.1 The arbitrariness and the

wide variation of decision making processes among the District Governors is very likely

symptomatic of a system without adequate human and financial resources and lacking

enforceable systems of accountability upwards and downwards.

A related observation from this assessment is that various donors, NGOs, and Provincial

Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) are viewed by many community petitioners as the official

means through which to obtain funds for community projects. The processes of submitting

petitions are thus disparate and reflect a nascent system of governance whose maturation

requires reform, restructuring, legislative change, new resources, and, most importantly,

time.

1 There are regulations that govern how financial resources of District Governors should be allocated and accounted for. However, given the autonomous way in which District Governors operate, it is quite conceivable that proper records of financial are not maintained. This, however, is an issue that requires more specific attention starting with systematic audits of District as well as other levels of government.

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The current arrangements within the sub-‐national system of governance are complicated,

and unsustainable in the longer term, due to the fact that there are many players within the

system with overlapping roles and responsibilities. This situation is compounded by

overlapping roles and responsibilities of actors outside of the system, not least those of the

PRTs and national and international NGOs. A number of provisions are being built and

proposed, notably by the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG), to ensure

that community needs are systematically heard and addressed. However, a number of

entities including PRTs and donor organizations unwittingly compete with these efforts for

what they rationalize as practical reasons.

The majority of the efforts to institute a functioning system of sub-‐national governance are

either aimed at the provision of basic infrastructure and equipment at the local level or are

undertaken at the macro level through such measures as legislative change,

professionalization through training, and holding elections – without sufficient resources

being allocated to develop internal systems, such as filing, recording, collating, auditing, and

analyzing information channeled to and from District Governors and their offices.

In all 33 districts (across 13 provinces) where this assessment took place only in 4 districts (2

provinces) were there similarities in how community petitions were addressed. In some

districts the communities used various approaches to promote their needs resulting in a

number of parallel processes for processing community petitions. These parallel processes

point to a significant degree of (bureaucratic) immaturity and/or disorganization at the

district level. It is not is not possible, or advisable, to arbitrarily assign good/bad values to

processes for which no criteria exist to measure accountability, transparency, and legitimacy

in a political and legal environment which is still evolving.2 One may, however, partially

distinguish between performance levels based on the number of petitions processed, record

keeping, and openness to questions from ordinary actors (such as researchers) outside of

the district level governance.

District Governors are viewed as key entities to provide good governance under the Local

Governance and Community Development (LGCD) program. However, given the fact that

the District Governors are appointed political figureheads without adequate access to

resources and unable to generate revenues locally, they are, perhaps, not (yet) the most

effective governmental body for delivering local services. To fill this void, international

donors, PRTs, international NGOs, District Development Assemblies, and district offices of

DRRD have emerged as local actors with significantly higher capacities (and resources) to

address local needs.

2 A specific objective of this assessment was to create a ranking / rating system of good governance across districts. However, the widespread randomness of the petition processes makes the creation of a ranking / rating system impracticable and arbitrary.

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There is, nevertheless, much value in learning from the LGCD experiment. First, further and

more in-‐depth investigation over a longer period of time is required to establish why the

petition process in some districts is unpredictable, non-‐standardized, and unnecessarily

complicated whereas it is reasonably straightforward in others. Indeed, future and more in-‐

depth studies into the workings of district governments can and should be expected to

reveal at least approximations of efficiency (what works best and why), effectiveness

(measurable improvements in the well-‐being of the petitioning communities), accountability

(upwards to higher levels of government and downwards to the community), accessibility

(community’s perception of), and other indicators as appropriate.

Second, every effort should be made to find innovative ways to strengthen the more

straightforward petition processes that utilize the relevant structures in the sub-‐national

system of government while taking measures, including allocating new resources, to bring

order into petition processes in districts where there is little or none so as to establish

predictability and orderliness in how petitions are carried from one stage in the sub-‐national

system of government to the next. The reasons behind the willingness by some governors to

act as facilitators need to be further investigated and understood as crucial contextual detail

to inform future programming.

Provision of trained local administration staff needs to be intensified to become a major

component of future programming in the districts, especially since many governors

throughout the country lack sufficient or adequate education or formal training to mange

their responsibilities or run their offices in a professional manner. Most importantly, trial

and error with an emphasis on learning from every phase of the project and a longer term

planning horizon for development programming in sub-‐national governance must become

key considerations in future programming since fulfilling such a fundamental task as

changing the way people relate to one another and govern themselves is likely to be a

generational challenge.

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1. Introduction

USAID’s Local Governance and Community Development (LGCD) program, implemented by

DAI from 2006 to 2011, is aimed at building capacity of provincial and district levels of

governments to deliver services in an effective and collaborative manner. LGCD was

designed to promote and contribute to building good governance, enabling communities to

take an active role in their own development while supporting counterinsurgency operations

and addressing the root causes of instability. To meet these objectives, LGCD has partnered

with the Government of Afghanistan to identify community priorities, resolve community

concerns during the implementation of LGCD projects, and conduct opening and closing

ceremonies for development projects. The funding for the projects is dispensed through

local structures of (sub-‐national) Government. The main goal for LGCD has been to provide

assistance to Government officials at the local level to gain increased legitimacy as service

providers for local communities.

Given the often highly localized nature of LGCD’s project activities, district governments are

seen as key partners for the implementation of LGCD. The project was designed so that

LGCD did not accept requests or petitions for development projects directly from local

communities. Rather, LGCD would collect community petitions from district governors in an

attempt to boost the legitimacy and efficacy of formal Government structures as the link to

the donors’ resources and the key to the delivery of development projects. This rapid

assessment was commissioned by LGCD to gain an understanding of the processes through

which district governments address community petitions, and to provide some measure of

the program’s success in fostering linkages between communities and their district

governments.

This remainder of this report is structured as follows. The next section provides a

background to sub-‐national governance in Afghanistan. Sections 3 and 4 describe the

rationale for this rapid assessment and the objectives, respectively, based on the Scope of

Work provided by LGCD. Section 5 provides details of the methodology used in carrying out

this assessment. Section 6 reports on the key findings from this assessment while Section 7

concludes with a series of recommendations.

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2. Sub-‐national Governance in Afghanistan Sub-‐national governance in Afghanistan is a focal area of activity for a number of major

donors and filled with a wide range of actors and institutions at multiple levels, from

Community Development Councils to the National Government in Kabul. The area has seen

rapid development and re-‐organization since 2005. From 2006 to 2009 governance was one

of the key words in major documents outlining development strategies for Afghanistan:

London Compact (2006), Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS, 2008), and The

Hague Conference (2009). Spending on governance-‐related programming also increased in

the same period. During 2002-‐2005 international donors spent a total of USD 1,689 million

on government and civil society in Afghanistan, compared to USD 5,198 million in 2006-‐

2009, a three-‐fold increase. 3 To provide the larger context of this assessment, the remainder

of this section outlines the legal foundation for the development of sub-‐national

governance, identifies key donors and actors, and discusses their interactions.

2.1. Legal foundation

The legal foundation for Afghanistan’s sub-‐national governance system rests on the

following key documents and decisions:

-‐ The Provincial Council Law (2005, amended 2007): Describes in full detail the functions

of the provincial councils, particularly the provision of consultation and oversight

(without veto power) services to the provincial administration.

-‐ Presidential Decree (November 2006): Institutionalizes Community Development

Councils (CDCs) as local government units at the village level.

-‐ Cabinet decision (November 2005): Establishes the Provincial Development

Committees.

-‐ The MRRD Memorandum (July 2005): Provides guidelines for the establishment of

District Development Assemblies and District Development Plans in relation to

provincial planning processes.

-‐ The Constitution (2004): Calls for the provision of elected councils at the village, district,

municipality, and provincial levels.

-‐ The Local Administration Law (2000): Defines the structure and the role of the Ministry

of Interior in provincial affairs.

-‐ The Municipal Law (1957): Provides for the election of municipal assemblies, municipal

councils, mayors, and deputy mayors.

3 Poole (2011).

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2.2. Key Donors and Implementing Agencies

International donor organizations with contributions to sub-‐national governance include

UNAMA4 (working with Provincial Development Committees), UNDP/ASGP5 (sub-‐national

policy support and capacity building), UNDP/NABDP6 (working with District Development

Associations and providing economic and reform support), USAID7 (working with IDLG,8

Provincial Councils, Kabul Municipality, and District Governors through contracting

organizations such as DAI9), World Bank (support for CDCs10), EU11 (working on national level

justice sector reform, rural development, and health services), CIDA12 (working on capacity

building with NSP13, NABDP, and Provincial Development Committees), DfID14 (working on

capacity building with NSP15, ASP16, and provincial budgeting). In addition, the PRTs17

(financed by various aid providing nations) and numerous NGOs fill a variety of functions at

the local level from basic infrastructure development to service delivery in such areas as

education and healthcare.

Key donor-‐supported organizations working on sub-‐national governance include:

ARD18: ARD’s Local Governance and Community Development (LGCD) was to complement

ARD’s previous sub-‐national governance program, Afghanistan Local Governance Assistance

Project (ALGAP), which worked on capacity building with the Provincial Councils. By the end

of its run in 2006, ALGAP had organized a number of regional and national conferences for

PC members to facilitate contact with national government officials. Concentrated in the

north and the west, LGCD’s mandate was to build the capacity of the Offices of the

Provincial and District Governors, Provincial Development Committees, selected provincial

Line Ministries, and District Offices and centers. LGCD was also to mediate between aid

NGOs and the local communities as well as working with PRTs. ARD’s portfolio was

transferred to DAI in September of 2009.19

4 United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan 5 United Nations Development Programme / Afghanistan Sub-‐national Governance Programme 6 United Nations Development Programme / National Area Based Development Programme 7 United States Agency for International Development 8 Independent Directorate of Local Governance 9 Development Alternatives, Inc 10 Community Development Councils 11 European Union 12 Canadian International Development Agency 13 National Solidarity Program 14 Department for International Development (UK) 15 National Solidarity Programme 16 Afghanistan Stabilization Program 17 Provincial Reconstruction Teams 18 Associates in Rural Development, Inc 19 This transfer of programmatic responsibility from ARD to DAI was reported by DAI in the review of the first draft of this report.

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DAI: Since October 2006 DAI has been contracted by USAID to implement the Local

Governance and Community Development (LGCD) program in 24 provinces across the

Eastern, Southern, and Western regions of Afghanistan. DAI’s mandate is to implement

small and medium-‐scale projects in currently underserved provinces and districts. These

projects are typically labor-‐intensive and include irrigation canal cleanings, road

rehabilitations, and district center upgrades. DAI also helps villages and rural communities in

remote and isolated areas resolve conflicts through collaborative implementation of

community-‐based development projects as well as build the capacity of provincial and

district governments to deliver services in an effective and collaborative manner.20

UNDP / Asia Foundation’s Afghanistan Sub-‐national Governance Program (ASGP): The

IDLG was created in late 2007 in response to criticisms about major deficiencies in

Afghanistan’s sub-‐national governance system. IDLG reports directly to the President and

has supervisory responsibility at the provincial level. Supported with funds from UNDP and

assisted in setup by the Asia Foundation, IDLG is mandated to ensure participation,

eliminate discrimination, promote involvement of women in leadership, and fight against

corruption in the public sector. To this end, IDLG is to establish and strengthen institutions

at the sub-‐national level and to ensure that they are open, transparent, and accountable.

2.3. Structures of Sub-‐national Governance

IDLG (2010) characterizes the current state of sub-‐national governance as lacking a clear and

coherent policy or legal framework, resulting in a system with insufficient transparency,

openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness and efficiency. As a result roles and

relationships between the various entities of the system are unclear and vary widely across

jurisdiction. This situation applies as much to the relations between the provincial level of

governance and lower levels such as districts and villages as it does to the relations between

provinces and the national government. The existing laws, according to IDLG (2010), do not

provide sufficient provisions for accountability and transparency downward to the

communities:

There is nothing in the laws stating that people or their representatives can hold the sub-‐

national government entities to account. Since the laws do not demand accountability to the

people, these entities are not responsive to the people. (IDLG 2010:59)

The sub-‐national governance structure for each of the provinces in Afghanistan consists of a

Provincial Governor (and Governor’s Office), Provincial Council (PC), Provincial Development

Committee, Provincial Administrative Assembly, representation from at least some of the

20 Based on DAI’s Terms of Reference for this rapid assessment (November 26, 2010).

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various ministries as Departments (line ministries), national independent agencies and

offices (some provinces only), provincial chief of police, and representative of the National

Directorate of Security.21 At the district level, the system consists of the District Governor

(and Governor’s Office), District Administrative Assembly (DAA), District offices of line

ministries, District Chief of Police, District Office of the National Security Department, and

District Prosecution Office. At the village level there are the Village Council (or

Administration), Community Development Councils (CDCs), and a host of traditional

governance personalities including Qaryadars (village heads), Khan (persons of influence),

rish safids (white-‐bearded community elders), Mirabs (water masters), Ulema (religious

elders), Mullahs, and Qumandans (tribal leaders).22

There are currently four main jurisdictional levels in the sub-‐national system of governance.

These are:23

Provincial Level:

-‐ Provincial Governors: Appointed by the President with considerable formal and informal

powers including sign-‐offs on expenditures, participation in procurement, and power

over provincial appointments.

-‐ Provincial Councils: Elected with advisory, oversight, and conflict resolution roles. PCs

have no budgeting authority.

-‐ Provincial Line Ministries (Provincial Departments): Responsible for service delivery in

key sectors such as health, education, and utilities.

-‐ Provincial Development Committees: Charged with limited coordinating and planning

(including budgeting) functions.

Provincial Governors are appointed by the President, through a process controlled by the

Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG), and vetted by the Special Advisory

Board on Appointments. The governors can and do exercise considerable power in such

areas as expenditure approval, dispute resolution, and appointment of other officials and

civil servants at the provincial level. The new sub-‐national governance policy gives the

governors the power to chair provincial administrative assemblies of provincial line ministry

heads, provincial security officials, and the provincial prosecutor. There are no directly

elected officials on these assemblies. In addition, the governors have approval powers over

the appointment process for some provincial civil service positions and authority over cross-‐

ministerial programs.

21 The information for this section is drawn from AREU (2008), Asia Foundation (2007), Cookman and Wadhams (2010), IDLG (2010), Katzman (2011), Malkasian and Meyerle (2009), SIGAR (2011), World Bank (2007), and interviews with IDLG officials in March 2011. 22 See IDLG (2010:10-‐13). 23 Based on IDLG (2010).

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Provincial Development Committees (PDCs) are responsible for drafting Provincial

Development Plans but do not have spending authority. The committees are chaired by

provincial governors and tasked with the coordination of service provision by line ministries,

national government, nongovernmental and international aid organizations, and Provincial

Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). The committees were formalized by a government decree in

2005. The Ministry of Economy is responsible for staffing and secretariat duties of PDCs

while the new sub-‐national governance policy guarantees a seat on each PDC for the

chairperson of the relevant Provincial Council.

Provincial Administrative Assemblies consist of the Governor as the chair, heads of the

provincial Departments (line ministries) and agencies, Provincial Prosecutor, Deputy

Governors, Provincial Security Chief, and Mustufiat (Provincial Departments of the Ministry

of Finance).

Provincial Councils are elected every four years with the most recent election having been

held in August 2009, at the same time as the Presidential Elections. 25% of council seats are

reserved for women with the total number of seats varying from 9 to 29 depending on the

provincial (estimated) population. IDLG allocates PCs’ budgets and oversees their role in

development planning, monitoring, and advice in matters of provincial development. The

new sub-‐national governance policy has made some provisions to strengthen the oversight

powers of PCs, giving them the responsibility for monitoring and evaluation of government

service delivery and citizen complaints. The policy also makes provisions for PCs to approve

Provincial Development Plans and provincial budgets developed by the PDCs before

submission to the national government.

Line Ministries in each province receive funds from their Kabul parent ministry on the basis

of the province’s population size and needs. Most of the provinces have the key line

ministries such as Health, Education, and Rural Rehabilitation and Development. When

these key ministerial departments are not present, the Governor’s office takes over the

responsibilities for performing their functions. The Afghanistan Statistical Year Book 2010

provides some information on governmental structures at different levels from 2008 but has

no breakdown on government employees in each ministry broken down by province.

District Level:

-‐ District Governors: Appointed by the President and with a relatively limited formal role.

-‐ District Development Assemblies (DDAs): Created as part of MRRD’s National Area

Based Development Programme (NABDP), DDAs are charged with the coordination,

planning, and budgeting across sectors at the district level. The responsibilities of DDAs

include identifying priorities at the district level and developing strategies that reflect

the interests of their communities and villages to assist the District Councils in preparing

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district development plans.

-‐ District Administrative Assemblies (DAAs): Consist of the district governor as the chair

and the heads of district departments of line ministries and agencies.

-‐ District Offices: Local offices of some line ministries with limited functional

responsibilities, typically the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD),

Ministry of Interior (MoI), and Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL).24

District Governors preside over district governments and district level affairs as provincial

governors preside over provincial council and provincial level affairs. District governors are

appointed by the presidency through IDLG. The provincial governors generally make

recommendations on these appointments. IDLG’s new sub-‐national governance policy is not

clear on how the district governors are to be selected and vetted, but calls for a future

agreement with the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission

(IARCSC) to consider district governors as civil servants rather than political appointees.

The formal actors at the district level governance are the District Governor, District

Administrative Assembly, District Chief of Police, District offices of provincial Departments

(line ministries), and District Prosecution Office. Operating at a lower level of jurisdiction

than provincial governors, district governors’ role is also one of coordination and control of

service delivery by higher levels of government. As with provincial governors, the

Constitution calls for district governors to be elected and work closely with district

development committees. No elections have been held since 2001 to elect provincial or

district governors, however. These positions continue to be filled through appointment by

the presidency, albeit in conjunction with IDLG.

As with the provincial level of government, districts are expected to request funding from

the national government in Kabul. The type and amount of funds allocated are supposed to

be a function of the population and district needs. There is no evidence to suggest, however,

that the allocations are carried out systematically, evenly, or equitably. In addition, district

and provincial boundaries throughout the country remain poorly defined. The government’s

sub-‐national governance policy identifies 364 districts in the country while some estimates

are as high as 398.25

The presence of international military and (I)NGO entities the provinces creates a great

potential for undermining this already uneven and inequitable process of fund allocation at

all levels including the district. There are various estimates of how much aid is disbursed

bypassing the government institutions. The Government of Afghanistan estimates that only

24 See the remainder of this section for more detail on the district level of governance. 25 See AREU (2008).

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23% of aid is delivered via the government entities while the OECD26 Creditor Reporting

System reports that 38.9% of aid from OECD was disbursed via the government in

Afghanistan.27 Services delivered via NGOs tend to cluster around “safe” provinces and large

cities while military clusters around insecure provinces provide various services in attempts

to win hearts and minds in key terrain districts.

The new sub-‐national governance policy requires a minimum of 25 percent of the provincial

level spending be used on projects identified by the PDC plan. A Cabinet Committee on Sub-‐

national Planning and Finance is supposed to control how to split revenues between the

national, provincial, district, and municipal levels. This Committee is chaired by a vice

president and co-‐chaired by the IDLG Director, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of

Economy, none of whom are directly elected or accountable to the provincial government

authorities.

Municipal and Village Levels:

-‐ Municipalities: Municipal administrations led by mayors who are appointed by the

President and have functional and service delivery responsibility for urban services

-‐ Community Development Councils (CDCs): Elected according to different systems

depending on the area and responsible for local infrastructure development and some

administrative functions. There are CDCs in two thirds of the country, funded by

numerous donor-‐provided infrastructure funds.

Municipal, Community, and Village Government: As with provincial and district governor

positions, mayors are to be elected according the Constitution. The estimated number of

municipalities is currently 217, according to the World Bank though Ministry of Finance puts

this number at 159. No elections have been held to date and mayors continue to be

appointed by the presidency, with recommendations from provincial governors. A key and

significant difference between municipalities and all other levels of government is that

municipalities are empowered, formally at least, to enact municipal legislation, approve

annual budgets, and set tax rates. Further, municipalities are empowered to collect their

own revenues (from customs or local taxes, for example) and allocate them to local needs

and service provision. Some problems have surfaced in relation to generating municipal

revenues through opaque deals in selling public lands and imposition of illegal taxes and

user fees, however.

The district is the lowest level of formally recognized administration in Afghanistan’s system

of sub-‐national governance. Formally, each district usually has a District Governor

(woleswal), district offices of line ministries, a police department, a prosecutor, and a

26 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 27 Poole (2011).

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primary court. District governors are appointed by the President. Given this direct link to the

highest authority, district governors have significant influence upwards and downwards in

the national system of governance. At the lower level, district governors are expected to

attend to the petitions received from the citizens by referring them to appropriate

governmental bodies above the district level.

Despite the fact that the Constitution calls for the Provincial Councils, Governors and Mayors

to be elected, to date the Provincial Councils and Community Development Councils are the

only two elected bodies. All other bodies are run and staffed by appointees including at the

district level, although IDLG has made various attempts to monitor these appointments

through a system of checks and balances.28

2.4. Sub-‐national Governance Parameters and Dynamics

The system of sub-‐national governance has been described as one of having systemic

contradictions due to the formal and informal allocation of roles and responsibilities and the

de facto power of some of the main actors in the system. The World Bank (2007) and others

have highlighted the following among the main characteristics of the sub-‐national system:

-‐ The authority for the provision of key services such as health, education, and

infrastructure development (e.g., water and energy) is concentrated in highly

centralized and vertically organized Line Ministries (provincial departments of national

ministries) with insufficient horizontal linkages among them. Compounding this setup at

the provincial level is the authority vested in the Provincial Governors and their offices

which allows for intervention in the operations of Line Ministries and other sub-‐national

governmental bodies such as Municipalities. The Provincial Governors have the power

to appoint civil servants to provincial line ministries and to approve expenditures by

them. This situation raises serious accountability and operational issues.

-‐ Line ministries in provinces are further constrained by over-‐centralization and top-‐down

reporting power exercised by the national ministries located in and operating out of

Kabul.

-‐ There are regional variations as far as the power relationships between the Governor

and other provincial governance actors such as line ministries. In Herat and Balkh, for

example, the Governors are able to exercise more autonomy than other provincial

governors.

-‐ Per capita expenditures on service delivery vary widely among the provinces without a

systemic explanation as to why this is the case.

28 For an elaborate description of this process see IDLG (2010), particularly pages 19-‐20.

18

-‐ Community Development Councils (CDCs) and Municipalities are the lowest level of

government representation in the sub-‐national governance system. While CDCs are

elected and have been the subject of much discussion as a necessary component of

democratic governance in rural areas, Municipalities are yet to hold their own elections.

The CDCs have been the main mechanism through which community input is sought on

the provision of services and for selecting development projects in rural areas.

However, key to the CDCs’ existence has been various funding streams that have

sustained the CDCs as formal governance bodies and enabled them to deliver services

through availability of development funds and technical expertise. With the prospect of

the external inputs such as funds and expertise being withdrawn in 2009, it is likely that

many CDCs will no longer be able to continue in their current role.

The main constraint in the current arrangements for sub-‐national governance is the sub-‐

optimal and far from clear or transparent division of roles and responsibilities rather than

inadequacies in the formal levels of sub-‐national governance.29 If anything, there is an

overabundance of formal structures in the sub-‐national system of governance. This is further

exacerbated by the fluidity of the de facto division of labour in the sub-‐national governance

system and the still evolving relationships between the different levels of government and

the donors (including PRTs).30

Figure 1 is the rearrangement of the actors in the sub-‐national governance system and their

inter-‐relations, as proposed by the World Bank (2007), as the way toward a more optimal

system. In 2007 the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development started developing

District Development Assemblies (DDAs) which, as yet, have not been officially recognized.

DDAs are made up of volunteer civilians, most of whom have been active as CDC members

in the past, who act as mediators between the community, CDCs and district government

officials. DDAs collect and prioritize requests by CDCs and community shuras for submission

to the district government office. Where they exist, DDAs are made up of 30 individuals (15

male and 15 female). The influence of DDAs varies from district to district.

In Figure 1, DDAs are denoted as “CDC Federation”. It is noteworthy that the as yet to be

fully formalized CDC Federation (now DDAs) and Municipalities are given prominence, as are

district offices of line ministries and NGOs, in this schematic while district councils and

district governors are absent.

29 See, for example, Asia Foundation (2007) and World Bank (2007). 30 See, for example, McNerney (2006).

19

Figure 1: Optimal Institutional Structure for Sub-‐national Governance

Source: World Bank (2007) Figure 1 as the conceptualization of sub-‐national governance in Afghanistan by one major

player, i.e., the World Bank, stands in significant contrast to the overall programming on

sub-‐national governance involving other major players such as USAID, one of whose main

foci in the sub-‐national governance system is district governance. Despite this omission,

Figure 1 importantly emphasizes cross-‐linkages to cut across the current silo-‐like

arrangements among the key actors and a redefinition of roles and responsibilities as a

means to eliminate duplication and increase accountability. At the lowest level in Figure 1

are Governance & Delivery Units such as school management committees (SMCs).

Figure 1 is the only publicly available graphical articulation of how sub-‐national governance

should work in complex realities of Afghanistan. There are a number of other publications

describing actors in national and sub-‐national governance. However, most fail to show how

these structures are, or are supposed to be, inter-‐related (e.g., Figure 2).

The discussions about sub-‐national governance intensified between 2006 and 2009 resulting

in a sharp increase in the number of reports and other documents about sub-‐national

governance in Afghanistan. A new turn in these discussions emerged in 2009 when sub-‐

national governance began to be viewed as a key and integral aspect of stabilization and

reconstruction efforts.

20

Figure 2: Administrative and Political Structure of National and Sub-‐national Governance

Source: Asia Foundation (2007).

2.5. Responsibilities of District Governors

IDLG (2010:134) defines the roles and responsibilities of District Governors as follows:

… to maintain peace, security, order and stability; to maintain the Rule of Law; to realize,

protect, promote and extend human rights of the citizens; to promote social, economic,

educational and cultural development; to ensure that people get services they value most; to

ensure good governance arrangements; to reduce poverty and disease; to achieve MDGs31

for the people; to mitigate and manage natural disasters; to eliminate poppy cultivation and

to promote alternative livelihood; to protect environment and to make sustainable use of

natural resources; to promote Islamic values and to assist in implementation of ANDS and

national priority programmes.

In addition, the district governors are charged with acting as the executive heads of the

District Administrations with responsibility for heading planning and coordination at the

district level, monitoring and overseeing district police, and district offices of provincial line

departments. District governors also chair District Committees on counter narcotics and

disaster management.

31 Millennium Development Goals

21

Officially, district governors report to the provincial governor. However, given the volatile

security conditions in many areas of the country, communication is often limited and as a

result there is insufficient capacity at higher levels to monitor the activities of district

governors. Decisions made by district governors in response to community petitions are not

systematically monitored by higher levels of governance, creating decision making situations

at the district levels which can be far from fair, transparent, or accountable. For example,

citizen access to police, prosecutors, and courts is subject to the decision of the district

governors. Given this de facto power, and given the formidable task of dealing with such

local issues as insurgency, narcotics production, resolving local disputes, and all forms of

trafficking, the likelihood of becoming corrupt or acting corruptly at the district level of

governance is quite high. This situation is compounded by the system of appointing district

governors. It is widely know that the transfer, and re-‐assignment of district governors

among provinces are often used for co-‐opting the local power holders in the government

(IDLG 2010:70-‐71).

Box 1 provides an overview of the roles and responsibilities at the district level of

governance. According to IDLG (2010:10), sub-‐national governance responsibilities at all

levels, including the districts, should include:

-‐ Maintaining peace, security, order and stability

-‐ Maintaining the Rule of Law

-‐ Realizing, protecting, promoting, and extending human rights of the citizens

-‐ Promoting social, economic, educational, and cultural development

-‐ Providing services to the people [including]… Justice, Security, safe passage of people

and goods on public roads, water and sanitation, Health and Nutrition, Education,

Electricity, Roads, Local Transportation, Rural and Urban Infrastructure, Agriculture and

Irrigation, Natural Resource Management, Land Registration, Social Protection, Identity

Card, Private Sector Development, civic services such as Solid Waste Management,

Traffic Management, Street Lighting, Recreational Facilities, Libraries and such other

services that people value most.

The fuller description of these tasks is listed in Box 1, below, drawn directly from IDLG

(2010).

22

Box 1: District Governance at a Glance District Governor’s Roles and Responsibilities: -‐ Executive Head of District Administration -‐ Security, Public Order, Stability and Peace -‐ Maintaining Rule of Constitution and Rule of Law -‐ Protection, Promotion and Extension of Human Rights

-‐ Oversight, Monitoring, Quality Assurance, and Performance

-‐ Management of the public services delivered in the district

-‐ District Development Planning -‐ Local Economic Development -‐ Private Sector Development -‐ Good Governance -‐ Public Administration Reform and Capacity Development

-‐ Poverty Reduction -‐ Attainment of MDGs -‐ Implementation of Regulations -‐ Administration and Coordination -‐ Fiscal Authority of Expenditure and Financial Management

-‐ Environmental Protection -‐ Counter Narcotics -‐ Disaster Management -‐ Land Registration and Land Acquisition for public purpose

-‐ Mapping of Villages -‐ Promotion of Islamic religion -‐ Liaison with Communities, Civil Society and Media District Level Governance Entities: -‐ District Council -‐ District Courts -‐ District Governor -‐ District Development Assembly (DDA) -‐ District Administrative Assembly (PAA) -‐ District Police Chief -‐ District Offices of Provincial Line Departments -‐ Private Sector -‐ Civil Society including Shuras and Councils, Media -‐ Communities District Council Roles and Responsibilities: -‐ Reach an agreement on District Development Plan -‐ Oversight, Monitoring and Evaluation, Quality Assurance,

-‐ Performance Management over the District Administration

-‐ Liaison with Communities, Civil Society and Media -‐ Help maintain Security, Public Order and Rule of Law -‐ Elimination of customs contrary to the law and sharia

-‐ Protection, Promotion and Extension of Human Rights

-‐ Environmental Protection -‐ Counter Narcotics

District Administration Responsibilities: -‐ To maintain peace, security, order and stability in the district

-‐ To maintain the Rule of Law in the district -‐ To realize, protect, promote and extend human rights of the citizens of the district

-‐ To promote social, economic, educational and cultural development of the district

-‐ To provide services to the people. These services include Justice, Security, Safe passage of people and goods on Public Roads, Water and Sanitation, Health and Nutrition, Education, Electricity, Roads, Local Transportation, Rural and Urban Infrastructure, Agriculture and Irrigation, Natural Resource Management, Land Registration, Social Protection, Identity Card, Private Sector Development, civic services such as Solid Waste Management, Traffic Management, Street Lighting, Recreational Facilities, Libraries and such other services that people value most.

-‐ To ensure good governance arrangements in the district i.e. to ensure: o Openness/Transparency o Accountability to People o Participation of People, especially Women and

Youth o Participation of Civil Society and Private Sector o Local Democracy o Effectiveness-‐Efficiency o Equity and Inclusiveness o Gender Justice o Coherence, and o Rule based system at all levels

-‐ To reduce poverty and disease and to achieve MDGs for the people of the district

-‐ To mitigate and manage natural disasters -‐ To eliminate poppy cultivation and to promote alternative livelihood

-‐ To protect environment and to make sustainable use of natural resources

-‐ To support Islamic religion and promote Islamic values

-‐ To assist in implementation of Afghanistan National Development Strategy and national priority programmes

District Administration Entities: -‐ District Governor -‐ District Administrative Assembly (DAA) -‐ District Police Chief -‐ District Offices of Provincial Line Departments

Source: IDLG (2010:130-‐132)

23

Much additional detail on goals, objectives, and outputs is provided for the District Governor

by IDLG (2010: 134-‐148), District Councils (IDLG 2010: 150-‐155), and how District Governors

and District Councils (should) communicate and interact. However, as this rapid assessment

shows, the mechanisms described for functions and responsibilities of the district governors

and the councils as stated by IDLG remain an ideal state and very far from what actually

takes place on the ground. This is, at least in part, due to the immaturity of these and other

sub-‐national governance entities and the fact that effective monitoring and evaluation

cannot take place in many of the districts due to a general lack of security, leaving the

governors and the councils to their own devices in attending to business.

24

3. Rationale for this assessment

There is ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that local communities are now more likely to

see their district officials as the link to the donor, and route their concerns through

government channels instead of coming directly to USAID or LGCD. However, there has been

no systematic analysis of how effective district governments have become in handling

community petitions, and partnering with LGCD in the design and implementation of

projects. This assessment was intended to gauge how capacity to handle community

petitions varied across district governments, and how district government engagement in

local development projects might be changing as a result of LGCD activities. Figure 2

represents the flow of information between actors that may or may not be involved in the

process of addressing a particular community grievance or request for aid.

Figure 2. Communication of Community Grievances to Project Implementation

Source: Scope of Work (November 26, 2010)

The assessment is intended to provide greater understanding of how district governments

enroll various actors in the process of addressing particular types of community grievances

and requests.

25

4. Objectives

This assessment has three specific objectives as outlined in the Scope of Work.32

Objective 1: Development of a rigorous and replicable methodology for data collection and

systematic, comparative analysis of how district governments gain awareness of community

grievances and needs. The methodology will enable the quality of governance across

districts to be indexed to a set of quantitative indicators forming the weighted components

of an aggregate ranking of all 30 districts from best to worst governed.

The key data collection tool for this assessment was semi-‐structured interviews. These

interviews were conducted in 33 Districts in Badghis, Farah, Ghazni, Helmand, Herat, Kabul,

Kandahar, Khost, Laghman, Logar, Nangarhar, Paktika, Uruzgan, and Zabul provinces. (See

Appendix 1 for the list of districts). Section 5 of this report discusses the methodology used

for this assessment in detail, including how the methodology was implemented, challenges

faced in the field, and strategies developed by APPRO to mitigate these challenges. Section 5

also discusses the tools used for the analysis and the challenges in devising quantitative

indicators to rank districts from best-‐ to worst-‐governed, and how these challenges were

mitigated.

Objective 2: Identification of the best and worst practices of different district governments

acting to organize and prioritize the community grievances and needs that they seek to

address through development projects.

After careful review of the data collected it was not possible to attribute good and bad

values to the practices of possessing community petitions, not least because of the fluid

political and legislative environment, and a lack of consistency in how community petitions

were processed in the districts visited. All the processes documented were different from

one other and in some districts communities used more than one approach to promote their

needs resulting in a number of parallel processes for processing community petitions in the

same districts. The number of parallel structures within the same districts suggest

institutional volatility and even immaturity characterized by weak (and unpredictable)

bureaucracy. Given these operating parameters, it is prudent not to attribute absolute

values to processes. Section 6.2, Multiple Processes, discusses this issue in greater detail.

32 For consistency wording of the objectives in this section is lifted from DAI’s Scope of Work for this rapid assessment (November 26, 2010).

26

Objective 3: Identification of bodies and institutions to whom district governments

communicate community grievances and needs, and how they determine the proper

channel of communication to request a particular development project activity.

This objective was met partially by developing the community petition processing maps. Yet

it was impossible to identify how the District Governors determine the proper channel of

communication as very few of them were willing to discuss the issue. In the process of

looking at the identification of appropriate channels for communication DDAs and

Departments of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (DRRDs) were identified as important

points of contacts in the processing of community the petitions. For details on efforts made

to meet this objective and the main findings, see Section 6.2, Multiple Processes, and 6.3.2,

Emergence of DDA and DRRD as a key agency.

27

5. Methodology

This assessment was conducted in the period from late January to early March 2011 in 33

Districts across Southern, South Eastern, South Western, Central and Western parts of

Afghanistan. This period coincided with the seasonal dip in the conflict. Security of the 13

provinces for this assessment varied from low insecurity (1) to extremely insecure (6). (See

Table 1). Data collection on average lasted between six to ten working days per district.

Table 1: Security rating of the provinces for the assessment Province Security Rating Badghis Moderately Insecure Farah Highly Insecure Ghazni Extremely Insecure Helmand Extremely Insecure Herat Deteriorating Kabul Low Insecurity Kandahar Extremely Insecure Khost Extremely Insecure Laghman Moderately Insecure Logar Moderately Insecure Nangarhar Highly Insecure Paktiya Extremely Insecure Zabul Extremely Insecure

Prior to data collection the research team obtained permission letters from IDLG to

interview District Governors. In addition, for some districts permissions had to be obtained

from the Provincial Governors to talk to the District Governors. The research was introduced

to the district officials as an assessment of the capacity of the district governance system to

address local needs. Only in the cases where the officials were highly uncooperative did the

research team indicate that this work was done for DAI/LGCD. This, however, did not seem

to make much difference in the level of cooperation between the researchers and the less

approachable district governors and their staff.

5.1 District Selection

The districts were selected by APPRO from an original list of 40 districts provided by DAI.

These 40 districts were narrowed down to 30 on the basis of their accessibility by the

research team. The original number of districts were set at 30. However, in the process of

planning and implementing the fieldwork, APPRO suggested three additional districts in

provinces where the Provincial Governors insisted that a district closest to provincial center

would provide good information on how the petition processing system worked. Of the

revised total of 33 districts, two did not respond to interview requests from the research

team (Lashkar Gah in Helmand and Qalat in Zabul).

28

5.2 Unit of Analysis

The primary unit of analysis of this study is the District Governor function in 33 LGCD target

districts selected in consultation with DAI. In each of the districts the Governor was

interviewed about the process of submitting and processing petitions. In central districts

where there were no District Governors, APPRO attempted to interview the Provincial

Governors who assume the functions of district governors. However, the provincial

governors approached for this research refused to participate in the study on the basis that

this was a district governance study. In addition to interviewing the district governors,

APPRO researchers interviewed at least one other district government official. In 13 cases

this meant community organizers or clerical staff. (See Appendix 1 for the list of

interviewees). Not all interviews were formal, particularly since some of the respondents

asked for the researchers not to report their participation in the study due to fears of

repercussion by their superiors.

5.3 Research Tools

The assessment tool for this evaluation was a list of open-‐ended questions designed for

semi-‐formal interviews. (See Appendix 2 for the interview guide). This approach allowed the

District Governors and other relevant officials to describe the process of identifying,

communicating, and addressing community grievances in an informal manner and in their

own words. The information from the semi-‐structured interviews was used to map out the

processes of receiving and addressing community petitions and requests. (See Appendix 4

for the process maps).

The meetings with the District Governors during the field visits were aimed at establishing:

- How and through which intermediaries community requests are communicated to the

district government

- How the requests reach various project implementing agencies

- How the district government is involved in project implementation, and

- How and through what means the district governor refers the petitions to relevant

governmental department and agencies or donors.

Further, the researchers examined and documented as many verbal and written requests for

development projects as the district government officials were willing and/or able to share.

The data collection and the subsequent analysis were aimed at:

29

1. Recording the Governors’ estimate of the number of verbal requests for development

projects received in a typical month.

2. Gathering all written community requests for development projects stored at each

district government office and photographing each written request using a digital

camera, security and protocol permitting, or otherwise copying (sometimes through

hand-‐copying) the written requests.

3. Assigning each written request a number and filling in a table with the attributes of the

request, including the date of request, the village or community it came from, the type

of project requested, whether the request was addressed through a development

project and, if so, through what government ministry, PRT, and/or donor agency. If any

of this information were missing, the researchers requested knowledgeable district

government officials to provide additional information orally.

4. Recording how the district government was involved in projects implemented in

response to written community requests. Forms of involvement in each project could

include communication with the community, District and/or Provincial Development

Councils, higher levels of Government, PRTs and specific donor agencies, and

participation in the planning, implementation, monitoring and opening and/or closing

ceremonies of the project.

5. Identifying the reasons for rejection of the proposals.

5.4 Challenges in Data Collection

The initial plan was for the Governors and other key district officials responsible for

prioritizing, handling, and communicating community requests to draw diagrams to visually

represent how, and through which intermediaries, community requests were communicated

to the district government, how the request reached various project implementing agencies,

and how the district government involved itself in project implementation. None of the

governors gave the research team enough time to pursue this approach with them and

many stated that there was not much point in investing in the exercise since there would be

no tangible rewards or benefits for the Governor and their staff.

An additional complication was that none of the interviewed staff who were approached

after the governors refused to cooperate, were aware of the full details of processing

community petitions. The maps ( Appendix 4) are thus highly schematic and lack intricate

details. Nonetheless, the process maps have been constructed to best of the available

information obtained through interviews, observation notes, and reviewing actual

community petitions. In cases with gaps in the available information, the maps were

completed and verified through subsequent follow-‐up calls to local actors.

30

Some of the district governors were uncooperative and reluctant to engage with the

research team. When the District or Provincial Governors were uncooperative the

researchers found lower level staff who were interested to talk about the process of

submitting and processing community petitions. This, however, resulted in a much longer

and slower process of data collection than initially envisioned. In one case the researchers

had to resort to introductions from USAID to facilitate a conversation with the Provincial

Governor.

Resistance by the governors ranged from general disinterest in answering questions to

active resistance and, sometimes, outward hostility. In Zabul province researchers were told

that the letter of introduction from IDLG was not adequate as it did not name the

researchers but the organization, APPRO, and that they would have to return the next day to

speak with the Governor. The next day the Governor met with the researchers but refused

to answer their questions on the grounds that the researchers did not really care about his

problems and what they were doing in his office was only to make money. He refused to

show the researchers any evidence of the petition process and the researchers were asked

to leave. On their way out the researches engaged one of the clerks who quickly described

the petition process.

In Ghazni, the Provincial Governor refused to talk to the researchers on the basis of

inadequate letters of permissions from IDLG. Only after direct involvement of IDLG/LGCD

the governor agreed to talk to the researchers; even then he insisted that the team should

visit districts other than those selected, justifying this on the grounds that he too was

interested in how the districts in insecure areas were doing. In Kandahar the Governor

refused to answer our questions because he deemed our questions as “political”.

In Logar one of our researchers completed asking his general questions of the District

Governor and then asked if it would be possible for him to have the Governor’s phone

number in case there were additional questions or need for clarification later. The Governor

picked up the ashtray from his desk and threatened to throw it at the researcher unless he

left immediately. The researcher was not given copies of the petitions and had to obtain

them through a friend who worked at DRRD.

Such attitudes are not new. In APPRO’s other research projects similar resistance has been

noted. This resistance and hostility is partially attributable to “research fatigue”, a seemingly

31

post-‐2001 Afghan phenomenon, whereby everyone from ordinary citizens to government

officials and international donor organizations complains about providing information to

researchers whose findings or contributions do not find their way back to the individuals and

organizations that provided the information. Information sharing appears not to be in wide

practice even among people who work in the same organizations or government agencies.

In a number of interviews the researchers were told that sharing information on the petition

process was a waste of time and resources. This reluctance to share information may be in

part due to the upward only accountability arrangements the district governors have

assumed for themselves since they are appointed from higher levels and not elected.

Attitudes displayed by the District Governors serve as an interesting indicator of their

accessibility from the perspective of the local communities. Since the district governors are

appointed, their positions are not dependent on performance in serving their communities.

The governors are not accountable to their own constituency. By the same token, the

district governor or office staff are less likely to be viewed by the community as the points of

call to express community development or service provision requests. In fact, out of the 52

processes documented in this assessment, only a third (16 processes) approached the

District Governor directly (Table 3).

The current arrangements point to a distant and, to a degree, semi-‐autonomous relationship

between local and other levels of government. To illustrate, all researchers involved in this

assessment had letters from IDLG introducing the research and asking for cooperation.

While these letters were received courteously, they had little or no bearing on the decision

of the district or provincial governors to cooperate. This attitude may be reflective of the

unspoken complaint that many District Governors receive insufficient support from the

national Government.

5.5 Data Processing and Analysis

After the data collection was complete all the interview notes were transcribed, along with

the field notes, and descriptive forms. The transcribed data were compiled into descriptive

summary forms (see Appendix 3 for format) with information from the fieldwork monitoring

sheets, interviews with District Governors, and hard copies of the petitions. The tables,

completed participatory tools, and observation field notes were analyzed to produce this

32

report. In the process of analysis the team looked for commonalities and differences in how

district governments handle and communicate community requests and participate in

project implementations, across the districts assessed.

5.6 Staffing

This rapid capacity assessment was led by two senior researchers, working with a team of 16

field researchers tasked with visits to the District Governor offices in selected districts and

data collection. For the 8 highly insecure provinces in the assessment (6 extremely insecure

and 2 highly insecure), APPRO worked with part-‐time local researchers instead of sending

full time researchers from Kabul to the provinces. With all fieldwork, monitoring forms were

filled out on a daily basis and follow-‐up calls were made to field researchers as and when

necessary. Each researcher was briefed either on the phone or in person about the

objectives of this assessment. Daily contact was maintained with all research teams to

ensure security and consistency in the quality of the data collected. A team of 2 researchers

at the APPRO office in Kabul was responsible for daily monitoring and security checks. The

two senior researchers had the overall responsibility for the execution of field plans,

interviews, site scoping for security, data analysis, and the delivery of the final report.

33

6. Findings

The information in this section is based on the data collected during field visits to selected

districts.

6.1. Strained Public Relations

District Governors are political appointees with little or no incentive to act accountably. Sub-‐

national governance in Afghanistan has been characterized as catering to the needs of

powerful individuals rather than in pursuit of longer term reconstruction objectives (IDLG

2010). There is general reluctance by major figures of the system, such as the provincial or

district governors, to engage in dialogue about performance or political responsibility. In the

most extreme cases this reluctance is openly hostile and perhaps originates from the fact

that the governors are appointees rather than elected public figures who could be voted out

of their positions.

Efforts to develop capacity of district governors have thus far focused on “institution

building”, e.g., the creation of elected bodies such as community development councils and

provincial councils, and working with other (appointed) formal structures such as provincial

and district governors. Significant amounts of fund have been and continue to be allocated

by major donors to provide infrastructure and equipment so that these formal structures

could function in organized, predictable, and accountable ways. Based on the review of the

available literature on sub-‐national governance and visits to the selected districts for this

assessment, it appears that the impact of efforts to develop the means and mechanisms to

facilitate communication between the communities and the various levels of government on

the one hand, and between the various structures of government on the other, has been

insufficient.

Despite the many efforts to build sub-‐national government in Afghanistan, there is no firm

evidence to suggest that changes made and entities created as part of state building in

Afghanistan have sufficient motivation, means, and capacity to persist in the longer term

and without the top down political support and funding from the donors in various forms.

34

The elected bodies of CDCs and Provincial Councils may, of course, prove to be more

resilient than the appointed ones.

6.2. Multiple Processes

The process for submitting and processing community petitions is different in each of the

districts visited. On average it takes nine steps to process community petitions starting from

the community expressing a need for a development project to its implementation.

However, the number of steps can vary from 5 to 13 (Table 2). Of the 33 districts assessed, 12 districts had two or three parallel processes for submitting and processing community

petitions (Table 3). Overall there are 52 distinct processes for submitting and processing

petitions in the 33 districts. Table 3 is a visual representation of the maps outlined in

Appendix 4. Had the processes been the same or somewhat synchronized the table would

have had single strips of lines such as the first line in the table – yellow – representing

communities. From the second step onwards the table becomes a patchwork of colors due

to the wide variety of petition processes between and within districts.

Table 2: Steps in the process of submitting petitions Number of steps from submission to implementation of the project

13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5

Number of petition processes

1 0 2 10 9 13 10 6 1

Only in Logar and Badghis provinces were the processes within the provinces synchronized

(Figure 3). In Logar province both Pul-‐e-‐Alam and Mohammad Agha followed the same

pattern of submitting petitions: from community to CDC and then to District Governor,

Provincial Governor, Department of Economy, DRRD, and MRRD where the petition was

registered and returned back to DRRD, which formed a three way agreement between the

CDC, DDA and DRRD to implement the project. The final step in this process was the

issuance of a tender to implement the project. Due to Pul-‐e-‐Alam being a provincial capital,

there is no District Governor, thus this step is redundant. In Badghis petitions were

generated at the community level from where they moved to CDC, District Governor,

Department of Public Works, and the PRT which then informed the District Governor about

allocation of funds, starting the tendering process to implement the project.

35

Table 3: Process matrix for submitting community petitions

District Steps # Province 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1 Muqur 2 3

Badghis Qadis

4 5

Farah

6

Farah

Pusht-‐e-‐Rod 7 8

Jaghori

9

Ghazni

Ghazni 10 11

Lashkar Gah

12 13

Nad Ali

14

Helmand

Nawa-‐e-‐Barakzai 15 Gozara 16 Injil 17

Herat

Pashton Zarghon 18 Khaki Jabar 19 20 21

Bagrami

22 23

Kabul

Deh Sabz

24 Daman 25 26

Kandahar

27 Dand 28 29 30

Kandahar

Maiwand

31 Sabari 32 33 34 35 36

Nadirshah Kot

37 Jaji Maidan 38 Shamal 39

Khost

Tani 40 Mehtarlam 41

Laghman Alingar

42 Pul-‐e-‐Alam 43

Logar Mohammad Agha

44 Jalalabad 45 46

Behsood

47

Nangarhar

Shinwari 48 49 50 51

Paktya Gardez

52 Zabul Qalat

Community

CDC

DDA

DRRD

MRRD

PRT

Donors

District Governor

Provincial Governor

Another provincial entity

Dep of Public Works

Dep of Economy

Tender

Implementation

Other entities

36

Figure 3: Districts with consistent petitions processing within the province

The processing of community petitions does not follow a straightforward line of submitting,

recording, approval, processing, identification of funding, and implementation. There are a

number of government and donor agencies involved in processing the petitions. Besides

District Governor these consistently include various branches of the Ministry of Rural

Rehabilitation and Development (27% of the processes exclude DDA, DRRD and MRRD from

the petition process), Ministry of Economy (17% of the processes), Donors (17%)

Department of Sectoral Services (15% of the processes), and Department of Public Works

(12% of the processes). These entities usually are not present in the same processes, except

in Khost where 3 processes in Nadirshah Kot and one process in Tani had both Department

of Economy and Department of Sectoral Services, and in Jalalabad (Nangarhar) Donors and

Department of Economy were in the same chain of processing community petitions. There

are other entities that are unique to individual processes such as Vakil-‐e-‐Guzar in Jalalabad

or Village Malik in Behsood (Nangarhar); Mullah in Alingar (Laghman) or Department of

Ershad and Awqaf in Nawa-‐e-‐Barkzai (Helmand).

37

6.2.1. Initiation

The petitions originate with the communities in most of the districts. Only two districts

reported DDAs as the initiators of the petitions – Khaki Jabar (Kabul) and Gardez (Paktiya).

Gardez also uses a parallel process where both the communities and DDAs initiate petitions.

The remaining steps for the petitions across the districts are very different. (See process

maps in Appendix 4). The first step for submitting a petition is to communicate the need for

a project to CDC and obtain their signatures on the petition (33% of cases), or approach

District Governor directly (29% of cases), or a varying mix of other actors (38% of cases).

6.2.2. Recording, Approval, Funding and Implementation

Once a petition is generated it is submitted to various government agencies for approval and

verification. There is no clarity regarding the registration of the petitions (Table 5). Only some of the petitions are recorded (through keeping copies) in district governors’ offices. In

eight of the districts no petitions were available. In the remaining 25 districts there was

some documented evidence of petitions. A total of 154 petitions were collected from these

offices for the period from 2005 to 2010, which represent a much lower volume of

reportedly processed petitions in the same period of time. Based on anecdotal information

from the interviews, 50 to 60 petitions come through the District Governor office each year

and about 20 to 30 petitions are being approved each year (Table 5). Thus if all the petitions were indeed registered, it should have been possible to find records of at least 600 petitions

in each year.

The petitions collected for this project were stored at the District Governor’s office. Some

were kept neatly in binders while others were stored in paper folders. There was no registry

of petitions in any of the offices visited for this assessment. Only the government offices of

Damand, Dand and Maiwand (Kandahar province) had a list of previously funded petitions,

as part of the paperwork left with the district governor by the project officers from DRRD’s

National Area Based Development Project. In 8 of the 33 districts visited researchers were

not able to see any records or copies of the community petitions at all (Table 5). Of these, 5 were the districts where researchers were not able to secure formal interviews.

APPRO also collected petitions that were on file in DAI/LGCD office. These included 167

actual petitions and a number of supporting documents such as introduction letters for

project focal points, guarantee letters, and invoices. These petitions covered 24 districts in 8

provinces (Table 4). Only 10 districts in DAI database were the same districts covered under

this assessment. DAI and APPRO databases are based on two almost completely different

38

sets of petitions as they cover the same provinces but different districts in those provinces

for the most part. In those districts where both DAI and APPRO collected petitions these

petitions covered different needs and were not the same.

Table 4: Number of petitions on file in DAI office #

Province District No of petitions on file

(2009 -‐ 2010)

No of petitions overlapping with APPRO

database 1. Farah Bakwa 8 0 2. Herat Gozara* 1 0 3. Herat Shindan 15 0 4. Kabul Deh Sabz* 2 0 5. Kabul Khaki Jabar* 4 0 6. Kabul Bagrami* 5 0 7. Kandahar Kandahar* 9 0 8. Laghman Dowlat Shah 17 0 9. Laghman Alingar* 18 0 10. Laghman Alishang 8 0 11. Logar Baraki Barak 7 0 12. Logar Mohammad Agha* 3 0 13. Logar Arza 6 0 14. Logar Charkh 7 0 15. Logar Pul-‐e-‐Alam* 4 0 16. Nangarhar Shinwari* 7 0 17. Nangarhar Nazyan 2 0 18. Nangarhar Spinghar 5 0 19. Nangarhar Achin 3 0 20. Paktiya Yousof Khil 1 0 21. Paktiya Khairkot 3 0 22. Paktiya Sayed Karam 5 0 23. Paktiya Zormat 23 0 24. Paktiya Gardez* 4 0

* Districts overlapping between districts in DAI database and those looked at by APPRO

There is no rational explanation as to why some district governors keep records of petitions

while others do not. Part of this could be explained by the fact that the District Governors

are appointed though a system of patronage and thus are not accountable for what and how

they are doing their job; as such there is no need to keep a record of community petitions or

other documentation. The job of district governors is very much viewed as symbolic and part

of realpolitiking exercises by the national government to cement local influence. Another

explanation is due to the fact that a significant number of development projects are

implemented without involving District Governors so as not to complicate the process. As

the District Governor of Jagori put it:

We only have the records for 5 or 6 petitions which have been directly referred to us. I don’t

have the rest of the copies submitted last year. Some of the projects were contracts

implemented directly, sometimes with no district office interference. The reason we have

only a few documents here is the direct and stubborn approach of some organizations which

implement projects without notifying the district office.

39

The petitions are considered registered if there is a date and a signature of the district

governor on the petition. As a result the registration process is not clearly and easily

traceable. For example, in Gozara district (Herat) it appears that the petitions reach the

District Governor’s office after they are registered with the Provincial Governor and the

Department of Public Works. In contrast, in the Dand district (Kandahar) the District

Governor signs the petition when it is first submitted and then signs off on it after it has

been signed by a number of other signatories. In Pusht-‐e-‐Rod (Farah) the District Governor is

not a part of the signing / approval process. Similarly, in Lashkar Gah (Helmand) and

Bagramin and Deh Sabz (both in Kabul), the district governors are not always involved in the

process. Tracing the sequences requires deciphering signatures and dates, often illegible,

from paperwork where they exist.

The process for submission, registration and funding petitions is not clear to the District

Governors themselves. For example, the governor of Muqur district (Badghis) claimed that,

“We were responsive to all of the petitions and in accordance with rules and regulations.”33

However when pressed to explain the Governor changed the subject. The Governor of

Pahstun Zarghon district (Herat) stated: “I have put my remarks on all the projects, but am

not aware if any of them was successful”34, suggesting that his role in the processing and

approving petitions was marginal. A governor of Bagrami (Kabul) reported: “The District

Governor is only paving paths for the development petitions and projects. We have no

information if any of them have been implemented.”35 Even in cases where the District

Governor appeared confident about how projects were processed, further corroboration by

the research teams revealed that the governors were not being entirely truthful about the

level of their involvement in the petition process. Even in situations where the process itself

was clear and had no parallel system of processing the projects were stalled: “20 of the

community petitions were approved, but due to internal conflicts and competing interests in

the communities, none of them were implemented and they are now suspended.”36

Funding sources for community petitions may be divided into three categories: donors,

government institutions, and PRTs. It is not clear who has the final say in whether or not to

give funding to a community petition. Direct donor access for the petitions was identified in

Jalalabad (Nangarhar), Daman (Kandahar), Kandarhar (Kandahar), Dand (Kandahar), and

Maiwand (Kandahar) districts. PRTs were clearly identified as a source of funding in four out

of the 29 districts: Behsood (Nangarhar), Alingar (Laghman), Farah (Farah), and Lashkar Gah

(Helmand). In cases where funding is disbursed via government structures the decision

making process is less clear. 33 Muqur district, Badghis province 34 Pashtun Zarghon district, Herat province 35 Bagrami district, Kabul province 36 Shamal district, Kabul province

40

Table 5: Reported number of community petitions

Province District

Petitions Collected (2005 – 2010)

No of Petitions in DAI Database (2009 – 2010)

No of overlapping petitions between

APPRO’s and DAI Database

Number of steps in petition process

Petitions Reportedly

Processed via District Governor

in the Last Calendar Year

Reportedly Successful

Petitions In the Last Calendar

Year

Badghis Muqur 3 0 0 8 No estimation No estimation

Badghis Qadis 3 0 0 8, 7 No estimation No estimation

Farah Farah 23 0 0 9, 8 No interview No interview

Farah Pusht-‐e-‐Rod 5 0 0 7 91 20

Ghazni Jaghori 6 0 0 9, 10 6 No estimation

Ghazni Ghazni 0 0 0 7 No interview No interview

Helmand Lashkar Gah 0 0 0 5, 6 No interview No interview

Helmand Nad Ali 9 0 0 7, 8 1000 600

Helmand Nawa-‐e-‐Barakzai 0 0 0 7 50 35

Herat Gozara 1 1 0 8 35 35

Herat Injil 3 0 0 9 100 30

Herat Pashton Zarghon 0 0 0 10 10 No estimation

Kabul Khaki Jabar 11 4 0 6 35 35

Kabul Bagrami 7 5 0 7, 8, 10 100 No estimation

Kabul Deh Sabz 6 2 0 7, 8 No estimation All submitted

Kandahar Daman 10 0 0 10 No interview No interview

Kandahar Kandahar 0 9 0 6, 9 No interview No interview

Kandahar Dand 9 0 0 11 451 451

Kandahar Maiwand 11 0 0 6, 7, 9 100 100

Khost Sabari 0 0 0 10 No estimation No estimation

Khost Nadirshah Kot 5 0 0 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 No estimation No estimation

Khost Jaji Maidan 1 0 0 10 60 20

Khost Shamal 6 0 0 6 60 20

Khost Tani 5 0 0 8 1000 1000

Laghman Mehtarlam 6 0 0

10 70 Conflicting reports

Laghman Alingar 1 18 0 13 100 24

Logar Pul-‐e-‐Alam 0 4 0 9 No interview No interview

Logar Mohammad Agha 3 3 0 11 No estimation No estimation

Nangarhar Jalalabad 8 0 0 10 741 350

Nangarhar Behsood 3 0 0 7, 8 350 100

Nangarhar Shinwari 3 7 0 8 1000 96

Paktiya Gardez 6 4 0 8, 8, 9, 10 310 100

Zabul Qalat 0 0 0 10 No interview No interview

41

6.3. District Governance Maturity

District governance maturity can be described as the ability of the district governance

institutions to address community needs and generate and channel appropriate resources to

provide adequate responses to community’s demands. Any number or combination of

actors in the District could deliver such services. Discussion about district governance

maturity is slippery as to date no coherent and universally accepted indicators for good

governance have been developed. There is however a myriad of indicators developed to

measure good governance (eg see Table 6), UNDP cites 33 tools currently used around the world to measure good governance.37

Table 6: Indicators of good governance used by various institutions Center for Democracy and Governance38

UNDP and EU39 World Bank40

Respect for Rule of Law and Human Rights

Electoral Systems Voice and Accountability

Genuine and Competitive Political Process

Corruption Political Stability and Absence of Violence

Politically Active Civil Society Human Rights Government Effectiveness Accountable and Transparent Government Institutions

Public Service Delivery Regulatory Quality

Civil Society Rule of Law Gender Equality Control of Corruption

District Governors are considered a key entity in the overall system of sub-‐national

governance in Afghanistan. However, given the fact that the District Governors remain

largely political figureheads and have generally under-‐resourced budgets and no clearly

defined ways to raise funds locally, they might not be the most effective structure for

delivery of community services, at least not reliably or consistently. Other actors such as

international donors and PRTs have emerged as entities to reckon with, yet others including

DDAs and DRRDs have emerged as possible contenders for effective delivery of services to

address social and economic development needs.

District government institutions are new developments and at present fail in performance

against the currently available indicators of good governance outlined in the Table 6. For this assessment the focus was to identify and document the key developments and features

of district government, the emergence of new structures such as District Development

Assembles, and role of donors and PRTs in conjunction with the functions of district

governments.

37 UNDP and EU. No Date. Governance Indicators: A User’s Guide. (UNDP and EU, New York). 38 Center for Democracy and Governance. 1998. Handbook of Democracy and Governance Program Indicators. Technical Publications Series. (USAID: Washington, DC) 39 UNDP and EU. No Date. Governance Indicators. 40 http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp

42

6.3.1. District Governors – From Figureheads to Facilitators

District governors are appointed mainly for political reasons and as part of political deal

making. Not all district governors live in the district they are supposed to govern. Out of 27

districts with district governor offices only 11 reside in the district and only on official days

while considering their places of permanent residence as being elsewhere (Table 7). Another

three district governors visited their districts a few days every month while one district

governor refused to specify his schedule. Only 12 governors were living in the district

permanently, yet two of those had their families living elsewhere in the country. Due to lack

of security, these governors spend much of their time in their protected compounds.

All district governors (or their staff) reported that when the petitions come to the District

Governor Office they are verified, approved, and signed. However, it was not possible to

establish the degree of importance for the role of District Governor Offices in clearing the

petitions. As is the case with many processes within the Afghan bureaucracy, it is difficult to

ascertain whether such approvals and verifications are genuine and aimed at ensuring that

legitimate concerns are addressed or whether this is more of a courteous formality designed

at best to provide stature for local individuals or, at worst, an opportunity to collect “speed

money” for processing the petitions.

There is general discontent among the district governors and their staff about resource

insufficiency and disconnect between district and provincial administrations. As one district

governor put it:

Communities do not approach us for support or liaison with NGOs, they always approach

them on their own through their personal connections. Therefore, we have no files and

proposals filed in the office and we are lacking a functional filing system. The district office

has very little human resources. A lot of organizations come to us only to obtain approval or

permission to proceed. The rest of the process is very much independent of us.41

Similar sentiments on not being fully informed or being part of the process were expressed

by other District Governors. Perhaps acting on this frustration, the Provincial Governor in

Ghazni insisted that APPRO’s team of researchers should go to a number of districts that

were out of bounds due to security concerns even for Afghan officials. When the teams

raised concerns regarding security, the Governor responded that the best use of research

was to collect information on sub-‐national governance activity in areas that are neglected

because of concerns about security.

41 Pashton Zarghon District, Herat Province, District Governor

43

There are a number of districts, such as Puste-‐e Rod (Farah), where the District Governors

are not involved in the petition process at all and communities approach Provincial

Governor directly instead. There is no District Governor in Lashkar Gah (Helmand), but the

communities do not seem to approach Provincial Governor for their petitions. In one of the

parallel process in Bagrami and Deh Sabz (Kabul) District Governors are not involved either

but are involved in other processes.

Table 7: Meetings with communities and residency status of the district governor

# Province District Frequency of community meetings

Status of residency in the district

1 Badghis Muqur Twice a week During official days only

2 Badghis Qadis Twice a week Resides in the district permanently

3 Farah Farah No interview No interview

4 Farah Pusht-‐e-‐Rod On needs basis Lives outside of the district and only visits and stays for a few days in his office.

5 Ghazni Jaghori Twice a month Resides in the district permanently

6 Ghazni Ghazni No interview No interview

7 Helmand Lashkar Gah No interview No interview

8 Helmand Nad Ali Twice a month I stay in the district 24 days a month

9 Helmand Nawa-‐e-‐Barakzai Weekly Lives in Lashkar Gah with his family, but he is present at his office everyday

10 Herat Gozara Twice a month Is present in official days at his office

11 Herat Injil Monthly Lives in Herat city, but comes to visit his office anonymously

12 Herat Pashton Zarghon Monthly During official days only

13 Kabul Khaki Jabar Monthly Resides in the district permanently

14 Kabul Bagrami On needs basis Resides in the district permanently

15 Kabul Deh Sabz Twice a month Resides in the district permanently

16 Kandahar Daman Unknown Unknown

17 Kandahar Kandahar No interview No interview

18 Kandahar Dand On needs basis Stays in the district, but the family lives in Kandahar city

19 Kandahar Maiwand Weekly Resides in the district permanently

20 Khost Sabari None During official days only

21 Khost Nadirshah Kot Monthly Resides in the district permanently

22 Khost Jaji Maidan Weekly During official days only

23 Khost Shamal Twice a month During official days only

24 Khost Tani Twice a month During official days only

25 Laghman Mehtarlam Weekly Lives in the government office, but his family lives somewhere else

26 Laghman Alingar Monthly Visit the office 15 times per month

27 Logar Pul-‐e-‐Alam No interview No interview

28 Logar Mohammad Agha Weekly During official days only

29 Nangarhar Jalalabad On needs basis Resides in the district permanently

30 Nangarhar Behsood Twice a month Resides in the district permanently

31 Nangarhar Shinwari Monthly Resides in the district permanently

32 Paktiya Gardez Twice a week During official days only

33 Zabul Qalat No interview No interview

44

Despite all these impediments, the interview data suggest that district governors are starting

to play a facilitation role in connecting communities to government institutions in some

districts. Many district governors meet on a regular basis with the communities and their

representatives to communicate messages from the central government or to discuss any

local issues. Regularity of meetings varies from twice a week (3 districts) to weekly (5

districts), twice a month (7 districts), once a month (6 districts), or on an as-‐needed basis (4

districts) (Table 7). In the six districts without district governors, the district governor duties

are delegated up to the provincial governors. It is not immediately clear whether or how

often Provincial Governors meet with the communities. The District Governor of Sabari

(Khost) stated that he had difficulties in meeting with communities because there was open

threat by the armed opposition against those cooperating with the government.

6.3.2. Emergence of DDA and DRRD as Key Agencies

In the process of this assessment District Development Assembles (DDAs) featured

prominently in the sub-‐national governance structure, yet DDAs are not a formal institution

and are currently not recognized by the government.

The DDAs are formed from a number of CDC representatives in a district. Each CDC sends

two representatives to the cluster meeting, where on average a total of 30 members – 15

are males and 15 females – are elected to form a DDA. The DDA then elects four officers –

chair, assistant chair, secretary, and treasurer. As of January 2011 MRRD has established 382

DDAs across the country.

All districts visited for this assessment had DDAs. Only one district (Dand, Kandahar) did not

appear on the MRRD database of DDAs.42 The DDAs in the remaining 32 districts were

registered in the MRRD database. The DDAs receive some training support from the

Departments of Rural Reconstruction and Development, and there is funding available for

the establishment and maintenance of DDA offices. There is no funding to support projects

promoted by DDAs or to pay salaries to DDA officers who currently work as volunteers. Due

to its informal status and lack of clear funding sources DDAs function on an as-‐needed basis.

DDAs currently facilitate communication between DRRDs and CDCs. DDAs help to put

together District Development Plans and then to follow up on them. The National Area

Based Development Program funded by UNDP relies on DDAs to feed the community needs

into the development of District Development Plans and then to monitor funding disbursed

via the program. DDAs appear to play an important role in promoting communities concerns

42 It is unclear why Dand is not on this register.

45

at the district level, with a potential to raise funding from a variety of sources including the

central government, donors, and PRTs.

The relationship between DDAs district governors is undefined. They work with district

governors to process community petitions and secure funding from the NABDP, yet there

are multiple reports of the DDAs struggling to establish working relationships with district

governors due to their informal status.

Donors usually work closely with CDCs, Provincial Councils, and DDAs in their attempts to

access communities and understand their needs. DDAs serve as an important link between

the communities, donors, and district governance structures. For example, the District

Governor in Dand (Kandahar) reported that from 2007 to early 2011 a total of 88 projects

had been implemented under the National Area Based Development Project that facilitated

the creation of District Development Assemblies. Of these, four projects were funded by

USAID, eight by UNICEF, six by CRDA/Japan and the remaining 70 by CIDA.43 In Daman

(Kandahar) during the same period a total of 66 projects were funded and implemented. Of

these 6 were funded by UNICEF and the remainder by CIDA. Quite possibly there have been

other projects implemented on petitions submitted by the communities but it is difficult to

quantify this because the district governor offices do not keep full and accurate records.

The Department of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (DRRD) also plays an important

role in processing and channeling funding to address community petitions. DRRD is involved

as either supporting DDAs’ initiatives or directly as the implementing government agency

with the following notable exceptions:

-‐ Lashkar Gah (Helmand): Communities approach PRTs for funding directly bypassing

district governor and DRRD altogether. However, in a parallel process for processing

petitions DDA and DRRD are involved, unlike the district governor.

-‐ Gozara (Herat): The Provincial Governor directs decision making on implementation to

the Department of Public Works

-‐ Injil (Herat): The community petitions are submitted to various donors via the

Department of Economy

-‐ Kandahar (Kandahar): Community petitions are submitted to Kandahar Municipality

which then approaches various donors directly

-‐ Nadir Shah Kot (Khost): The District Governor bypasses the DRRD and directs the

petitions to the Department of Economy which then issues a tender for (mainly)

construction projects, and

-‐ Tani (Khost): The District Governor directs petitions to relevant line ministries other than

DRRD.

43 These projects were implemented under the Provincial and District Development Plans developed by CDCs, DDAs and Provincial Development Assemblies under the guidance of DRRD and MRRD.

46

Despite the apparently central role of DDAs and DRRD in processing community petitions

there are signs suggesting that donors are not entirely clear about which of the sub-‐national

governance structures they should support. For example, DfID is funding a Helmand

Agriculture And Rural Development Programme (HARDP) via the MRRD.44 Since 2006 the

project has provided funding for community petitions under the coordination of MRRD and

involving DDAs. In March 2010 DfID started a nine-‐month project to support IDLG in playing

“a coordinating role in developing and enabling the District Delivery Program.”45 IDLG,

however, is refusing to engage with DDAs as unconstitutional and nonelected entities and

insists on establishing elected District Councils to coordinate social, political and

developmental activities in the districts. This approach is likely to undermine the legitimacy

of the DDAs and can potentially prevent their becoming established and institutionalized.

Similar problems are associated with funding from USAID. USAID is both contributing to

MRRD/UNDP administered National Area Based Development Program (NABDP) and

Afghanistan Social Outreach Program (ASOP).46 The latter works with IDLG to establish

district councils which do not work with DDAs.

6.3.3. Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs)

PRTs play a sometimes significant role in district governance. In this context PRTs are seen as

a potential source of funding and at times described as partners in development of the

district. One district governor reported: Of those projects that are submitted by the

communities a number of them were implemented by MRDD, and the rest were successful

and accepted by the PRT.”47

The researchers asked government representatives to name key entities that work in

collaboration with the District Governors on development projects. In 11 out of 27 districts

PRTs were named among other entities considered important for the development of the

district (Table 8). One of the District Governors explained partnership and development

contributions in the following way:48

“In the last 6 months, 3 bridges and stone laying on pathways have been implemented by

the Polish PRT. Two school buildings, and other development projects were also built

through PRT and the district office. Sometime PRT lists the priorities and implements them

44 http://projects.dfid.gov.uk/project.aspx?Project=107171 45 http://projects.dfid.gov.uk/project.aspx?Project=201703 46 http://www.aecom.com/What+We+Do/Government/Development+and+Response/_projectsList/Afghanistan+Social+Outreach+Program+%28ASOP%29 47 Maiwand district, Kandahar province 48 Jaghori district, Ghazni province

47

accordingly through private firms, like a paved road project from main bazaar to the district

office.”

Yet PRTs were identified in only four districts as direct players for funding projects from

community petitions. In four areas -‐ Behsood (Nangarhar), Lashkar Gah (Helmand), Alingar

(Laghman) and Farar (Farar) -‐ PRTs were approached for funding directly. PRTs were present

in all of the provincial capitals covered under this assessment. It is unclear why other

districts do not feature PRTs as a part of the process to obtain funding for community

petitions, especially the districts that consider PRTs as important partners.

Table 8: PRTs in the districts

Province District Location of the nearest PRT

PRT named as a partner

PRT is a part of the petition process

No of petitions

collected by APPRO

Of those collected by

APPRO processed via PRT

Badghis Muqur Qala-‐e-‐Naw, Badghis X X 3 3

Badghis Qadis Qala-‐e-‐Naw, Badghis X 3 0

Farah Farah Farah, Farah X 23 1

Farah Pusht-‐e-‐Rod Farah, Farah 5 0

Ghazni Jaghori Ghazni, Ghazni X 6 1

Ghazni Ghazni Ghazni, Ghazni 0 0

Helmand Lashkar Gah Helmand, Lashkar Gah X 0 0

Helmand Nad Ali Helmand, Lashkar Gah X 9 0

Helmand Nawa-‐e-‐Barakzai Helmand, Lashkar Gah X 0 0

Herat Gozara Herat, Herat X 1 0

Herat Injil Herat, Herat 3 0

Herat Pashton Zarghon Herat, Herat 0 0

Kabul Khaki Jabar ISAF, Kabul X 11 0

Kabul Bagrami ISAF, Kabul 7 0

Kabul Deh Sabz ISAF, Kabul X 6 0

Kandahar Daman Kandahar, Kandahar 10 0

Kandahar Kandahar Kandahar, Kandahar 0 0

Kandahar Dand Kandahar, Kandahar 9 0

Kandahar Maiwand Kandahar, Kandahar 11 0

Khost Sabari Khost, Khost 0 0

Khost Nadirshah Kot Khost, Khost X 5 1

Khost Jaji Maidan Khost, Khost 1 0

Khost Shamal Khost, Khost 6 0

Khost Tani Khost, Khost 5 0

Laghman Mehtarlam Laghman, Laghman X 6 0

Laghman Alingar Laghman, Laghman X X 1 0

Logar Pul-‐e-‐Alam Pule-‐e-‐Alam 0 0

Logar Mohammad Agha Pule-‐e-‐Alam 3 0

Nangarhar Jalalabad Jalalabad, Nangarhar 8 0

Nangarhar Behsood Jalalabad, Nangarhar X 3 0

Nangarhar Shinwari Jalalabad, Nangarhar X 3 0

Paktiya Gardez Gardez, Paktya X 6 0

Zabul Qalat Qalat, Zabul 0 0

48

6.3.4. Institutionalization and Best Practices

The institutionalization of the petition process to attend to community needs remains in its

infancy. A good indicator is the inconsistency of language used to describe the process and

lack of standardization in the steps that need to be taken from inception to implementation.

There is great variation in processing the petitions among the districts. References to an

office of NABDP in DRRD could be “Development Program”, “Area Based Program”,

“Reconstruction Specialist” or, simply, “the Office at DRRD”. Similarly the office of Social and

Sectoral Services under District and Provincial Administration becomes Department of Social

and Economic Services, Sectoral Services Department, Department of Technical and Sectoral

Services. There appears to be no unified terminology or description of the provincial

departments (line ministries) or specific offices in the provincial departments. In part this is

due to a lack of sufficient standardization of the steps in the process and the variations

among the districts in so far as the steps taken to process petitions.

Given the situation described above, it is not possible to speak of “best practices” in petition

processing. It is possible to state with some qualification, however, that there is some

degree of standardization in processing community petitions in 17 out of 29 districts while in

the remaining 12 districts there are two or three different ways for processing the petitions.

To illustrate, Bagrami (Kabul) seems to have the most haphazard way of processing the

petitions. In one instance the community approaches Kabul Provincial Council, which refers

the petition to DRRD. From DRRD the petition goes to Department of Engineering, then to

MRRD, then back to DRRD and then put out to tender. In a second approach, Bagrami

community petitions are submitted to MRRD directly, which then refers them to DRRD,

Program Administration, Department of Engineering and then out for tender. Finally,

community petitions can be submitted to the Provincial Council, which refers to the District

Governor, who passes it on to a Representative of the Presidential Office in the District, then

to MRRD, Registrar, back MRRD, Program Administration, Department of Engineering, and

then out to tender.

As a result it is impossible to name a number of processes outlined as the best practices for

possessing community petitions. All the processes were different from one another and in

some districts communities used various approaches to promote their needs resulting in a

number of parallel processes for processing community petitions. It is not possible to state

categorically that one petition process is “better” than another since being better can be a

function of the length of time it takes to process a petition, the number of steps, the degree

of support from the district governor (and his office), the size, value, and type of request

being addressed, and so forth. Having said that, the data and the analysis in this assessment

should be used as a starting point for developing such evaluation criteria to inform future

programming on sub-‐national governance at the district and other levels.

49

7. Conclusions

This assessment began with a review of the reports and other documentation on sub-‐

national governance in Afghanistan to provide an up to date overview and synthesis. The

review was used in conjunction with the Scope of Work and consultations with DAI to

generate a set of guiding questions for data collection in the 33 districts (Appendix 2). The

data were used to generate a series of maps ( Appendix 4) to document the actual processes

to which community development petitions are subjected.

There is much value in further attempts to establish and legitimize the functions of district

governors. A major challenge appears to be a disconnect between the district governors and

other actors within the sub-‐national governance system. At the higher level there is a

disconnect between the districts and the provincial and national levels while at a lower level

district governors are often insufficiently involved in the processing of the community

petitions. To a degree the international community has recognized this challenge but has,

thus far, failed to acknowledge that the legitimization of such new structures as district or

provincial governance systems is likely to take decades rather than years. This is

compounded by the fact that there are competing entities, interests, and functions within

the sub-‐national governance system and insufficient understanding of what would work best

in the complex Afghan context. There continues to be widespread confusion over the

mandate and jurisdiction of numerous departments (line ministries), new and emerging sub-‐

national governance structures such as District Councils, PRTs, and national and

international NGOs.

Understandably, the communities and their representative organizations such as

associations and/or I/NGOs tend to choose the path of least resistance and utilize their own

social networks and personal relations to take as many shortcuts as possible in securing

funds for community development projects. This results in the emergence of random

processes which sometimes can involve the Department of Ershad and Awqaf, the

Department of Economy, Provincial Executive Office, or Department of Private Sector

Development. The outcome of these processes is an idiosyncratic system that is hard to

standardize or penetrate unless the intervening body utilizes the same set of social and

personal relations that are used to address other informal issues. While there is much

potential for DDAs to streamline these disparate processes, expectations of what can be

achieved have to be moderated and viewed as longer term objectives rather than instant

goals.

The sub-‐national governance system has not worked in the manner perceived and expected

by the international community. In part at least, this may be attributed to a lack of

coordination among donors involved in sub-‐national governance and competitive visions

50

and priorities of the donors. In addition, as is the case with all policies, the outcome of the

interventions to institute a functioning, accountable, and transparent system have not

unfolded or evolved as expected. There is currently a conglomeration of formal entities with

unclear mandates and overlapping jurisdictions. The net result of these developments is

confusion for the potential users of the sub-‐national system of governance, particularly

communities and their proponent organizations, which may choose to pursue their interests

by bypassing the formal entities.

At the most basic level, many district governor functions are delegated up to the provincial

governor while those that maintain some degree of presence in districts lack the capacity to

fulfill their role. Capacity is lacking in some district governor offices in such fundamental

areas as a functioning filing system. From a Government and donor community perspective,

it is nearly impossible to monitor whether and how district governor offices fulfill their

responsibilities since there is no functioning, or verifiable requirement for an audit trail of

the petition process or, more importantly, whether the funds allocated to successful

community petitions were diligently and legitimately appropriated.

Despite these challenges, and given the amount of funds and other resources allocated to

building the system of sub-‐national governance, attempts will need to be made to monitor

the workings of district governor offices. Monitoring should draw on information collected

through carefully designed indicators such as, but not limited to, the following:

- Number of recorded and processed petitions

- Length of time it takes to process a petition

- A number of steps required to process a petition

- The degree of support from the district governor and his office to the community

- The size and the value of the development project

- Types of requests for petitions

- Relationship between the district governor and the community (partially through

establishing the governor’s place of the origin, ethnicity, and place of residence)

- Frequency of meetings with the community and its representative organizations

- Subject of the meetings between governors and communities / community

representative organizations

- Role of the governor in addressing community petitions

- Existence of a paper trail for all petitions

- Relationship between district governors other stakeholders: type of relationship, topic

of communications, etc.

- Relationship of the district governor with traditional forms of authority

- Direct attacks against the governor compound and its staff

51

These possible indicators are not all measurable or comparable across the districts. Yet such

indicators as the relationship between district governors and the traditional forms of

authority or communities are important in understanding whether or not the Governor is

accepted as a leader and is able to understand and address community needs.

While the findings from this assessment may be disappointing from an intervention impact

effectiveness perspective, there is much value in learning from the developments in sub-‐

national governance in the last five years. First, further and more in-‐depth investigation over

a longer period of time is required to establish why the petition process in some districts is

unpredictable, non-‐standardized, and unnecessarily complicated whereas it is reasonably

straightforward in others. For example, the petition process is more logical, standardized,

and straightforward in Mohammad Aga (Logar) than in Deh Sabz (Kabul) (see Table 5). Understanding the reasons for this divergence is likely to inform future programming in

support of sub-‐national governance.

Second, every effort should be made to find innovative ways to start streamlining the

petition processes while taking measures, including allocating new resources, to bring order

into petition processes in districts where there is little or none so as to establish

predictability and orderliness in how petitions are carried from one stage to the next. The

development of context specific (and useful) indicators of good governance must thus be

viewed as a subsequent task and easier to accomplish when the more straightforward

petition systems stabilize and assume a much higher degree of legitimacy and permanency

over time.

Third, there are indications that in some districts the governors are starting to play a

facilitation role in connecting communities to other levels of government. Many district

governors meet on a regular basis with their communities and community representatives

to communicate messages from the central government and to discuss local issues and

concerns (Table 7). Understanding why these favorable practices continue, despite there

being numerous incentives and structures to guide the governors to behave otherwise, is

crucial in setting the expectations (and outcomes) for future programming.

Fourth, all districts, to varying degrees, indicated that they had insufficient or inadequate

financial and human resources and facilities in governor offices. Provision of trained local

administration staff needs to become a major component of future programming in the

districts, especially since many governors throughout the country lack sufficient or adequate

education or formal training to mange their responsibilities or run their offices in a

professional manner.

52

Last but not least, trial and error with an emphasis on learning from every phase of the

project and a longer term planning horizon for development programming in sub-‐national

governance must be crucial components in future programming since fulfilling such a

fundamental task as changing the way people relate to one another and govern themselves

is likely to be a generational challenge.

53

8. Recommendations

Four basic but fundamental recommendations can be made based on this rapid assessment

of district governance:

Recommendation 1: It is widely recognized that evaluations, and even more so research, are

often an afterthought in reconstruction programming. Much of the resistance by the district

governors and their staff to engage with researchers from “outside” is due to the fact there

is no understanding or formal obligation to account to donors who sustain their existence

and operations. Given the general lack of contextual information and the widespread

“research fatigue” in all strata of Afghan society, research (and ongoing monitoring and

periodic evaluations) must become an early and integral part of program design in all

manner of reconstruction programming. Introducing research, monitoring, and evaluation in

the beginning of the process is likely to enforce as system of accountability, at least to the

funders.

Recommendation 2: Major problems plague the sub-‐national system of governance.

Patronage, political favoritism and deal making, insufficient legitimacy characteristic of weak

governments are major obstacles to a functioning, accountable, and transparent system of

governance. These obstacles must not, however, be reasons for inaction but, rather,

opportunities for innovation in working through the myriad of traditional power relations

through which much of Afghanistan continues to be governed. Many of these innovations or

possibilities to innovate come to light, however, when the work with district governors by

DAI and others is coordinated with and complemented by all other efforts aimed at

modernizing government and governance in Afghanistan. Future programming around

district governors must thus be done in conjunction with the work with Provincial Governors

and Councils at the higher level and Villages and Municipalities at the lower level.

Recommendation 3: Develop an applied governance training program to provide a

backbone for District Governance office function. This should include a tracking mechanism

to establish when and who submitted what petitions in the district governance offices. Focus

more on the internal structures of the District Government, such as filing, collating and

analyzing information that is coming into the District Government Offices. Support District

Governors in managing public relationships to provide for a greater engagement with

communities and other public entities on development issues.

Recommendation 4: Consider providing a dedicated funding to the District Government to

be able to address local needs, possibly including provisions for their ability to collect local

taxes. Alternatively channel all funding via government institutions and ensure that all

54

decisions are made at a designated point with an appropriate oversight. A major part of this

will need to be a development of actual maps of the process to be followed published in the

official places such as District Governors, using symbols as well as written text to overcome

illiteracy barriers. Maps could be structures as one of the maps in the Appendix 4. The

decision making process needs to be redefined and related to district governance offices and

other provincial entities.

Recommendation 5: Fund as few Governance development programs as possible to

maximize capacity to provide mentorship and support to the District Governors office by a

single agency. A major part of this approach is coordination and encouraging umbrella

programming consisting of interrelated projects rather than funding disparate projects.

Recommendation 6: Review timescale and action plans for sub-‐national governance and

District Governance in particular to adjust for a slower pace of changes. Given the fact that

institutions take time to develop even in more stable and secure environments than

Afghanistan, future sub-‐national governance programming will need to extend timelines for

new structures to be tested, accepted, and hence instituted.

55

References

AREU (2008). “The Changing Face of Local Governance? Community Development Councils in Afghanistan”. (Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit).

Asia Foundation (2007). “An Assessment of Sub-‐national Governance in Afghanistan”. (San Francisco: Asia Foundation).

Colin Cookman, C. and C. Wadhams (2010). “Governance in Afghanistan: Looking Ahead to What We Leave Behind”. (Washington DC: Centre for American Progress).

IDLG (2010). “Sub-‐national Governance Policy”. (Kabul: Independent Directorate of Local Governance).

Katzman, Kenneth (2011). “Afghanistan: Politics, Elections, and Government Performance”. (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service).

Malkasian, Carter and Gerald Meyerle (2009). “Provincial Reconstruction Teams: How Do We Know They Work?” (PA: Strategic Studies Institute). Available from: http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/

McNerney, M.J. (2006). “Stabilization and Reconstruction in Afghanistan: Are PRTs a Model or a Muddle?” Parameters (Winter 2005-‐2006): 32-‐46.

Poole, L. 2011. “Afghanistan, tracking major resource flows 2002 – 2010”. (Development Initiatives: Wells).

SIGAR (2011). “Governance, Rule of Law, and Human Rights”. (Kabul: The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction). Available from: www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/Jan2011/HiRes/Governance.pdf

World Bank (2007). “Service Delivery and Governance at the Sub-‐national Level in Afghanistan”. (Washington DC: World Bank).

56

Appendix 1: List of Interviewees

# Province District Agency or Department 1 Badghis Muqur District Government Office 2 Badghis Qadis District Government Office 3 Farah Farah Provincial Government Office 4 Farah Pusht-‐e-‐Rod District Government Office 5 Ghazni Jaghori District Government Office 6 Helmand Lashkar Gah District Government Office 7 Helmand Lashkar Gah Legal Department 8 Helmand Lashkar Gah Prosecution 9 Helmand Lashkar Gah Provincial Government Office 10 Helmand Nad Ali District Government Office 11 Helmand Nad Ali Department of Irrigation 12 Helmand Nawa-‐e-‐Barakzai Sectoral Services 13 Herat Guzara District Government Office 14 Herat Injil District Government Office 15 Herat Pashton Zarghon District Government Office 16 Kabul Bagrami District Government Office 17 Kabul Deh Sabz Administrative Department 18 Kabul Deh Sabz District Government Office 19 Kabul Deh Sabz DRRD 20 Kabul Kabul Department of Economy 21 Kandahar Kandahar District Government Office 22 Khost Sabari District Government Office 23 Khost Nadirshah Kot District Government Office 24 Khost Jaji Maidan District Government Office 25 Khost Shamal District Government Office 26 Khost Tani District Government Office 27 Khost Khost Executive Office 28 Khost Khost IRC office 29 Laghman Mehtarlam Sectoral Management 30 Laghman Mehtarlam Provincial Offices 31 Logar Mohammad Agha Provincial Government Office 32 Logar Pul-‐e-‐Alam DRRD 33 Nangarhar Behsood District Government Office 34 Nangarhar Jalalabad Provincial Management 35 Nangarhar Jalalabad Presidential Office 36 Nangarhar Jalalabad Services Sectors 37 Nangarhar Shinwari District Government Office 38 Paktiya Gardez Provincial Government Office

57

Appendix 2: Interview Guide Name of the District: ________________________ Date of the visit: ___________________ Name of the interviewer: ________________________

1. Name of the Governor: __________________

2. Length of service in this district: _______________

3. Ethnicity of the Governor: _________________

4. Political affiliation of the Governor: _________________

5. Name of the previous Governor: ________________

6. Length of service in this district of the previous Governor: _____________

7. Total estimated population for District: ______________

8. Predominant ethnicities in the District: _____________________________

9. Ethnicity of the previous Governor: __________________

10. Political affiliation of the previous Governor: ___________________

11. Relationship (political support, close trade, etc) if any with other district Governors__________________________________

12. District Governor Resides (Tick one): 12.1. In the district permanently 12.2. In the district part of the time (specify number of days) 12.3. Outside of the district and only visits the district sometimes (how many times per

month?) 12.4. Outside of the district and never visits the district

13. District Government Office (Tick one): 13.1. Located in a designated/separate building 13.2. Located in a shared building with other governmental offices 13.3. Located in a private/rented house 13.4. No dedicated office (explain where they are located)

14. District Government Staff 14.1. Number of staff (how many males and females?) 14.2. Their duties (Describe):

15. Attacks on District Governor’s Staff (Describe with dates and frequency):

16. Threats (verbal and written) against District Governor’s Staff (Describe with dates and frequency):

58

17. Attacks on District Governor’s Office (Describe with dates and frequency)

18. Threats (verbal and written) against District Governor’s Office (Describe with dates and frequency)

19. Ways District Governor engages with communities: 19.1. Community meetings (how frequently are they held? What is discussed?) 19.2. Public Notices (Flyers distributed / Radio and/or TV and Mosque announcements /

Other?) (Describe and copy examples where appropriate)

20. What does the District Governor’s Office do with the expressed wishes of the community? (Describe the process, ask to see evidence to use as example)

21. How successful is the District Governor’s Office in addressing the community’s needs? (If petitions are submitted to higher authorities to meet the community’s needs, to whom are these petitions submitted? What is the process? How long does the process take from submission to receiving a response from higher authorities?)

22. Other key stakeholders who support District Governor (NGOs, Military, Political Parties, etc.)

23. Format in which district governors document communities wishes and needs for social and economic development

24. How many of these requests submitted in the last year?

25. How many of these requests were addressed?

26. How does the deliberation process work at the Governor’s Office in addressing the community’s wishes?

27. On what basis does the Governor’s office decide what community wishes to pursue and promote?

59

Appendix 3: Monitoring Forms Province District Key Researcher Research Coordinator

Date Who was contacted in District

Governor’s office? Contact details What information verified? Notes Action Points Next monitoring meeting

Muqur Qadis

Community Community

CDC CDC

District Governor(Office for Registra<on of Pe<<ons)

District Governor

PRT/ISAF

District Governor(informed about alloca<on of funds)

Badghis Province

PRT/ISAF

Department of Public Works



Project implementa<on

Construc<on Companies



Appendix 4: Process Maps

60

Pusht-‐e-‐Rod

Community

DRRD

Department of Engineering

Farah

Community

Department of CSO

Farah Province

CDC

Provincial Governor

CDC

Department of Social and Economic Services

PRT



Provincial Governor

DRRD

DRRD

DRRD


DRRD





Provincial Governor

61

Ghazni

Community

Relevant line ministry

Provincial Governor

PDC

Donor

Jaghori

Community

CDC

District Governor

DRRD

MRRD

Provincial Governor (informed about alloca<on of funds)

Sectoral Services Department


Ghazni Province

Ministry of Public Works

District Administra<on

District Governor

IRD

CDC

DDA

Elected District Representa<ve







62

Nad Ali

Community

DDA

Department of MAIL

Community

Department of Ershad and Awqaf

DDA

Helmand Province

Lashkar Gah

Community

CDC

PRT



District Governor

Execu<ve Office

District Governor

Relevant Sector

Nawa-‐e-‐Barakzai

Mustofiyat

District Governor

Construc<on companies

DRRD

Department of MAIL Construc<on Companies


Department of Ershad and Awqaf



Planning and Development Department OfficeProvincial Governor




63

Herat Province

Pashton Zarghon

Community

CDC

District Governor

DRRD

MRRD


Provincial Execu<ve Office

Injil

District Governor

Department of Technical and Sectoral Services

Execu<ve Office

Gozara

Community

CDC

District Governor


Provincial Governor



CRDSA

Department of Water

Community







District Governor (informed about alloca<on of funds)

64

Deh Sabz

Community

DDA

District Governor

DRRD

MRRD

DRRD

Kabul Province

Bagrami

Community

CDC

MRRD

DRRD

Khaki Jabar

DDA

District Governor

DRRD

MRRD

Provincial Council

Presiden<al Office Representa<ve

District Governor

MRRD

DRRD

Provincial Council


DRRD

MRRD

DRRD

MRRD



MRRD












DRRD




65

Kandahar Province

Kandahar

Municipality

UN Habitat or Other Donors

Daman

Community

District Governor

CDC

DRRD

District Governor

Dand

Community

District Governor

DDA

Dep of Economy

District Governor

District Governor


Donor’s Zonal Administra<on Office

Provincial Council

Donor’s Field Zonal Office

Provincial Council

Provincial Governor

Departments of Line Ministries

Municipality

UN Habitat or Other Donors

Donor’s Field Zonal Office







DRRD

Community

CDC



66

Maiwand

District Governor

DDA

DRRD

District Governor

District Governor

Provincial Governor

DRRD

DDA

District Governor

DRRD

Community

Field Zonal Office

Program Administra<on

Field Zonal Office







Kandahar Province

67

Khost Province

Nadir Shah Kot

Community

CDC

District Governor


Sabari

Community

CDC

District Governor

DRRD

MRRD



DDA

DDA

CDC

District Governor

DRRD

Sectoral Service department





PRT

68

Shamal

Community

District Governor

DRRD

Provincial Governor

Jaji Maidan

Community

CDC

District Governor

DRRD

MRRD

Execu<ve Branch of Provincial Governor

Tani

Community

CDC

DRRDReconstruc<on

Specialist

Sectoral Service department




District Governor






District Governor (informed about alloca<on of funds)

Khost Province

69

Laghman Province

Mehtarlam

Community

Provincial Development Assembly

Provincial Governor

Department of Energy and Water

Planning Commi[ee

Alingar

Community

Department of Private Sector Development

District Governor

CommunityProposal Wri<ng

Provincial Governor

Provincial Governor

Coordina<on Body (DRRD, Energy and Water, Emergency)

Department of Energy and Water

CDC

DDA

Mullah

Youth Commi[ee

Village Malik

PRT





70

Logar Province

Pul-‐e-‐Alam

Community

CDC

Provincial Governor

DRRD

MRRD


Mohammad Agha

Community

CDC

District Governor

DRRD

MRRDThree way agreement: CDC/DDA/DRRD



Provincial Governor


Three way agreement: CDC/DDA/DRRD

DRRD



71

Nangarhar Province

Jalalabad

Community

Vakil-‐e-‐Gozar

Provincial Governor





Department of Private Sector Development

Donors

Behsood

Community

Village Malik

DRRD

Shinwari

CDC

District Governor

DRRD

Sectoral service department

CDC

DDA

District Governor

PRT


DRRD



Community

DDA


Construc<on CompaniesProject

implementa<on


DDA

District Governor

72

PakGya Province

Gardez

Community

CDC

District Governor

MRRD

CDC

DDA

Provincial Governor

DRRD

DRRD

Donor’s Zonal Provincial Office

Three way agreement: CDC/DDA/DRRD

MRRD

CDC



DDA



73

Zabul Province

Qalat

Community

CDC

District Governor

Provincial Governor

Departments of Line Ministries

Project Coordina<on Office

DDA

Provincial Development Assembly



74

Documents

District Government Assessment