Thematic Area: Local Governance and Administration

Project Document
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[Last Updated Sep 2011]

 

National Institution Building Project (NIBP)
NIBP works to develop the capacity of Afghanistan’s civil servants, to result in better budget utilization, organizational structures and skills of government employees.
ANDS Pillar 2 and Kabul Communiqué Focus Area
Governance, Rule of Law, and Human Rights

Proposed Budget
$115 mil USD

Resources
$10 mil USD

Implementing Partners
Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission (IARCSC)

Donors
Australia, Canada, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland
Project Overview

NIBP follows an integrated and structured approach to Capacity Development in partnership with the IARCSC.  Activities center around three main goals:
1) Institutional and organizational capacity of select government entities are strengthened through the development of policies and strategies, and improve-ment of systems in support of Public Administration Reform (PAR) objectives.
2) The institutional and organizational capacity develop-ment of select government entities, through coaching and advisory services in alignment with the govern-ment’s Civilian Technical Assistance Program (CTAP).
3) PAR management and coordination capacity of IARCSC strengthened and institutional and policy support for implementing required training programmes for civil servants established.
To achieve these goals, the project works with select govern-ment ministries, such as the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Information and agencies such as the Central Statistics Organisation.

In close collaboration with relevant ministries and agencies, NIBP prepares capacity development plans, based on a com-prehensive capacity assessment.

The project helps to place Capacity Development Advisors (CDAs) in ministries and agencies of the government at both central and sub-national levels, to build up the capacity of civil servants. CDAs are recruited primarily from neighboring countries to draw from shared experiences.

NIBP promotes “twinning arrangements” and partnerships between Afghan government ministries and agencies with corresponding ministries and agencies of other countries to transfer specialized skills and experience.

Context

In Afghanistan, problems of capacity exist at all levels, from individual capacity to organizational capacity to a lack of an enabling environment for further development. This has a serious impact on the effectiveness of civil servants and the government.

The majority of civil servants have undergone little or no training during the course of their careers. Further, the concepts of incentive structures, professional development and career progression have been weak or nonexistent. Consequently, there has been a basic lack of core competencies and special-ist skills to develop policies, implement projects and deliver services.

At the organizational level, some of the major problems include an incoherent government structure with overlapping functions across government ministries; outdated work processes, procedures and systems; patronage and nepotism in appointments; gender imbalance; and the absence of well-defined mechanisms for carrying out common functions of government, namely policy and strategy formula-tion, project management, financial management, procurement and human resource management.

In order to address these capacity challenges, the Kabul conference of July 2010 led to formulation of the Afghan Government’s National Priority Programmes that represent the prioritized require-ments of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy. The NIBP of UNDP Afghanistan follows the National Priority Programme for “efficient and effective government.”

Key Results

• Promoted South-South cooperation; secured the support of the Government of India for Public Sector Capacity Development in Afghanistan.
• Executed twinning arrangements with civil servants of the Government of India and Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) for capacity development between corresponding ministries / agencies.
• Organized 14 training programmes for 267 Afghan civil servants (110 men and 57 women) in South Korea, in areas such as Statistical Training, Economic Development Strategy, Sustainable Agricultural Development, Gender Policies, Labor Relations and Coordination, Local Administration and Education Policy Planning.
• Conducted Train the Trainers programmes to promote a better understanding capacity development, capacity assessments, and strategies within the civil service.
• Supported the government to prepare Capacity Development plans, covering policy and programmatic portfolios, for 5 government ministries and agencies.
• Supported 8 government ministries and agencies to develop knowledge products such as policy and strategy documents, and conduct organizational restructuring.
• Implemented an internship programme for 50 interns in Uruzgan province with the support of AusAID, to increase the skills set of the interns.
• NIBP partnership with Government of India – A note was prepared on the partnership with Government of India for sharing with UNDP India. The note explains the features of partnership between Government of India, Government of Afghanistan and UNDP Afghanistan in the area of public sector capacity development in Afghanistan which started in January 2007 with Capacity for Afghan Public service (CAP) Project and continues with the successor NIBP. In particular, the twinning MOUs between corresponding ministries / agencies of the two governments for cooperation in the field of capacity development was explained in the note.
• NIBP proposal for Poland and Malaysia – A proposal was prepared seeking partnership with Government of Poland and with Government of Malaysia for undertaking capacity development in Afghanistan under NIBP. The proposal for Poland seeks partnership with Poland on the lines of what exists with India. The proposal for Malaysia seeks partnership in specific areas of trade, commerce and industry through a twinning arrangement.
• PAD project – NIBP has undertaken the operations of PAD project to complete its residual activities in ministries / agencies. NIBP Consequent upon the allocation of resources for this purpose, NIBP informed MAIL to continue with procurement of consultancy services for Policy Analysis and Development. Further, a meeting was conducted to review the current status of implementation of PAD in the Da Afghanistan Bank.
• Advocacy and Communication – In consultation with the UNDP Communications Unit, NIBP finalized two one pagers on specific results of NIBP. These two one pagers were (a) Providing opportunities for Afghanistan’s youth, (b) Making affordable road transport accessible to Afghans.
• Recruitments:– Totally 11 Capacity Development Advisors (CDAs) (9 for Kabul and 3 for Herat and Mazar) were  recruited for the following ministries/agencies:

• Ministry of Transport & Civil Aviation
• Deputy Ministry of Youth Affairs
• IDLG
• Central Statistics Office
• Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation & Livestock
• Ministry of Labor & Social Affairs
• Ministry of Education
• Ministry of Information & Culture
• Department of Agriculture-Herat
• Department of Labor & Social Affairs-Herat
• Department of Agriculture-Mazar

            Besides 1 Chief Capacity Development Advisor was recruited in August 2011.
Active CDOs: 16 Capacity Development Officers (CDOs), 12 in Kabul and 4 in Provinces (Herat, Mazar and Jalalabad.
Capacity Development Advisory support to Ministries / Agencies in Western region: Recruitment Process for national CDOs is ongoing in consultation with Italian Cooperation. 2 Candidates have been selected. The position for Labour is being re-advertised. The TOR for Finance is being re-done to better reflect the needs of the Directorate.

• Perception Survey – In order to conduct a Survey of the perception of the citizens about Afghan Civil Services, NIBP has engaged the services of ACSOR Surveys. ACSOR has completed the field work for the national interviews, distributed proportionally to population as defined by the Central Statistics Office, as well as the targeted interviews to provinces where NIBP has active programs or plans to have active programs soon. A total of 2,999 interviews have been delivered back to the central office of ACSOR from the field. There were 1503 male and 1496 females respondents. ACSOR is now conducting further quality control on all the interviews. Training for the surveyors was conducted from June 9 to June 12, and the fieldwork was conducted from June 13 to June 22. The work was conducted by 298 interviewers. ACSOR used 146 female interviewers and 152 male interviewers. In order to control the fieldwork, 18.5% interviews were subject to quality control in the field. 2.9% (88 interviews) were directly monitored in the course of interview, while 15.6% (467 interviews) were subject to subsequent back-checks made by supervisors and managers in the field. The aim is to assess the public perception of the Afghan government’s delivery by its civil services throughout the country and the public perception of performance of Afghan civil servants in the delivery of services and governance in general. A first draft of the survey report prepared and a committee of three CDAs reviewed the report and provided feedback.
• NIBP in western region – As part of NIBP support to Department of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (DAIL) in Herat, NIBP initiated activities to improve capacity of DAIL’s data collection, storage and retrieval. Information was gathered on data collection, storage and retrieval systems of 5 DAIL Departments: Planning Department, Extension and Research Department, Human Resources Department, Cooperatives Department, and Quality Control Department. As part of NIBP support to Department of Labour and Social Affairs (DoLSA) in Herat, introductory meeting was conducted with the Director, DoLSA and he was briefed on the NIBP approach to CD. A draft of the proposed Organic Working Support Group was provided to the DoLSA Director. The OSWG has been activated and the training program for them has commenced with an orientation given to the members on Thursday, 11 August 2011.
• A paper entitled “Civil Service for Afghanistan” was prepared at the request of Director General, GDPDM, IARCSC. The paper discusses the system of civil services in several countries and suggests an apt system of civil services for Afghanistan in the given context.

NIBP Contacts
Sultan Hajiyev
Chief Capacity Development Advisor
National Institution Building Project (NIBP)
Sultan.hajiyev@undp.org
+93 (0) 703 333 260

Sayed Khalid Khushbin
Assistant Country Director
UNDP Afghanistan
sayed.khalid.khushbin@undp.org
+93 (0) 700 240 232

 

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