UNDP - Afghanistan

Thematic Area: Democratic Governance

[Last Updated June 2009]

Project Start Date: January 2008
Project End Date: December 2012
Project Location: Presidential Palace Kabul, Afghanistan
Status of the Project: Active
Responsible Partner: Office of the Presidential Speokesperson
Implementation Modality: Direct Implementation (DIM)

The overall goal of the “Strengthening State Building through Strategic Government Communication” project is to enhance the trust in and public support for the Office of the President (OoP), by ensuring the widest possible dissemination of credible and coherent real-time information on national development, reconstruction and security initiatives. The project aims to ensure that the Office of the Presidential Spokesperson (OPS) serve as the effective media and communication arm of the OoP. The project builds will further OPS’ public information and communication capacity by developing and implementing a more strategic communication outreach strategy.

The project will focus on the development of: (i) a communications strategy and a clear vision for the OPS to effectively target all relevant stakeholders and include mechanisms to enhance collaboration across line Ministries, government institutions and sub national levels of government, and (ii) a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to information and communication through the development and implementation of a capacity development and institutional restructuring plan, to increase the OPS ability to reach specific groups at national and local levels and provide access to information for the public to participate broadly in policy making processes and influence decisions that affect their lives.

Achievements

Output 1: An effective government communication strategy prepared and Government communication with its citizens improved.

A Communication Expert has been recruited and currently carries out consultation, the outcome of which will be the basis for a communication strategy, expected to be finalized in early 2009. The strategy will lay the foundation for the work of the Organisational Re-engineering Consultant who will be onboard in early 2009 to identify individual and institutional capacity needs.

The project continues its support to the OPS in its everyday function to maintain activities and quality communication and information dissemination until these activities can be improved and strengthened based on the communication strategy and the organisational re-engineering and capacity development strategy. Part of these activities is the coordination among the different media components at the OPS, covering press conferences and news on the President’s meetings/visits with senior officials. Project staff also contributes to ensure material for meetings, speeches, press conferences, protocol signings of the President and the Spokesperson, entailing the production of around 200 individual documents available from the OPS archive.

Output 2: Capacity of the OPS and provincial information ability developed for the implementation of an effective communication strategy

While the overall analysis of the organisational structure and capacity of the OPS will depend on the needs and capacity assessment by Organisational Re-engineering Consultant, steps have been taken during 2008 to ensure quality staffing at the OPS. The structure and individual staff roles, as well as capacity development needs will be reviewed by the Organisational Re-engineering Consultant. It is essential that both the communication strategy and the organisational re-engineering strategy duly considers existing assistance and structures.

Future Priorities:

• Finalization of the recruitment of an Organisational Re-engineering Consultant to assess the current capacity and organizational structure of the OPS and the provincial level to enable the implementation of the communication strategy.
• Formulation of a clear exit strategy for the project in collaboration with the Government

Challenges and Risks:

• The Communication Expert needs to coordinate with a large number of stakeholders and it is be essential to ensure Government buy-in and substantial consultations with counterparts.
• The complexity of stakeholders makes it a challenge to formulate a communication strategy that is not duplicative of existing support and considers existing resources and capacity, coordinating and consolidating these instead of duplicating them.
• The communication strategy should be a strategy for the government as a whole and not only OPS and should be formulated in a manner flexible enough for it to be adjusted across ministries and Government departments, while still ensuring a common Government voice.
• The strategy will also have to ensure that it approaches both sides of the two-way communication between the public and its Government and between the Government and its public, and considers both the national and sub-national level.
• Security constraints hinders activities and coordination at the provincial level and limits accessibility to and communication with some areas. The security constraints may also hamper the thoroughness of the assessment carried out by the two consultants in some of the provinces making it difficult to ensure that all provinces are equally considered.
• The existing provincial information hubs are badly equipped posing the risk that information may not be well disseminated at the provincial level and communicated upwards to the OPS and downwards to the public. This will need to be approached by the consultants.
• To guarantee sustainability it is vital to ensure the existence of an exit strategy.

Partnerships and Resources:

Target Budget: USD 3,413,966
Budget Received: USD 1,044,632
Commitment: USD 3,413,966
Shortfall: USD 0,0
Donors: DFID, UNDP/DGTTF

Contacts:
Dilawar Khan, Programme Officer (dilawar.khan@undp.org)

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Strengthening State Building through Strategic Government Communication (SSBSGC)