Afghan National Solidarity Programme - NSP Background

NSP Background

In 2001, after gaining power, Ashraf Ghani had envisioned the creation of several national development projects which would create public trust in governance. These programs included a National Emergency Employment Program to provide jobs across the country, a National Health and Education Program to get basic health packages to citizens and get children back in school, a National Transportation Program to make Afghanistan a land bridge for South and Central Asia and the Gulf, a National Telecommunications Program to set up a cell phone network across the country and attract private investment and a National Accountability Program to build good financial management (Ghani and Lockart, 2008)

After the Taliban were ousted from power in Afghanistan, the transitional power also realized that for the people to support the state, the most crucial national development project had to be visible to the 80% of the population in the rural areas. In order to interact with these people, engage them in development, include them in the reconstruction process and provide a uniform approach across Afghanistan, the National Solidarity Program (NSP) was launched.

As one of the Afghan government‘s National Priority Programs the NSP has been publicized as one of the most successful CDD programmes in the world to date. As a large scale rural reconstruction and development programme, the NSP had two primary goals: to strengthen local governance to foster rule of law and to lay the foundations of community managed sub-projects comprising reconstruction and development. The reconstruction efforts would be aimed at improving access of rural communities to social and productive infrastructure and services. Launched in 2003, the program was instrumental in generating employment and initiating the rehabilitation of rural infrastructure devastated by severe drought and two decades of conflict. The president of the World Bank estimates the economic rate of return on the NSP to be almost 20 percent (Zoellick, 2008). The NSP is funded by the International Development Association at the World Bank and the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund. Implemented by the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) and funded by the World Bank, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Danish International Development and Assistance Agency (DANIDA), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the NSP is the Afghan government‘s flagship programme. Acting as the oversight consultants and responsible for strengthening local capacity and programme management at the ministry are the consulting firms GTZ and DAI.