Manila, Dec 24, 2006 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Some US$2.7 million in grants will provide technical support to the Government of Afghanistan in creating a National Development Strategy.
The Interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy (I-ANDS), approved by the Government in January 2006, and the Afghanistan Compact, endorsed by the UN Security Council, includes a series of time-bound benchmarks and indicators as well as monitoring and coordination mechanisms. But Afghanistan currently lacks an effective and functional statistical system that can deliver statistical data needed to monitor their implementation, understand poverty, and monitor progress in reducing it.
The grant's first component, to be funded by $1.7 million from ADB, will strengthen the Central Statistics Office in collecting, analyzing, and managing statistical and other data required to monitor the implementation of the strategies.
The second component, funded by a $600,000 grant from ADB's Governance Cooperation Trust Fund, will promote transparency and accountability in order to curb corruption, which is increasingly recognized as one of the most importance challenges facing the country. It will support the Government in identifying and designing measures that fight corruption and help develop a National Anticorruption Strategy.
The third component, funded by a $400,000 grant from ADB's Cooperation Fund in Support of Managing for Development Results, will conduct a pilot poverty assessment, to complement work underway to help Afghan civil society organizations play a greater role in national development activities.
"Development of the full ANDS will include a process of extensive consultations involving government, civil society, the private sector, and international development partners," says Michaela Prokop, an economist at ADB's office in Afghanistan. "As Afghanistan remains a diverse and somewhat fractured society, such public consultation is considered essential for broad ownership of the ANDS."
The Government will contribute $440,000 equivalent in the form of counterpart staff and office space, and the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief will contribute $100,000 equivalent in-kind. The total cost of the project is estimated at $3.2 million.
The Ministry of Finance is the executing agency for the project, which is due for completion in December 2008.
Contact
Graham Dwyer
Email: gdwyer@adb.org
Tel:+632 632 5253; Mobile: +63 920 938-6487
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