UNDP | Afghanistan | Support to the Center of Government (SCoG)

Thematic Area: Democratic Governance

[Last Updated June 2008]

Project Start Date: July 2006
Project End Date: June 2009
Project Location: The Asia Foundation and the Office of the Chief of Staff (CoS) and Office of the administrative affairs (OAA) Kabul
Status of the Project: Active
Implementing Partners: Direct Implementation (DIM)

The Support to Center of Government (ScoG) project targets the Afghan Center of Government, which includes (a) Office of Administrative Affairs (OAA) (b) Chief of Staff Office (CoS). Whereas in particular, the CoS office supports the president in his role as the head of the state, the OAA supports the president in his role as the head of the government.

The objective of the project is to strengthen the institutions at the Centre of Government so that they are more agile, streamlined, transparent, and effective in their support of the Office of President as it strives to meet its policy objectives.

The outcome will be CoS and OAA offices that have been transformed over a three-year period according to their PRR designs through the building of their capacities, rationalization of their organizational structures, redesigning of their administrative work processes, and upgrading of their facilities and information technology to international standards.

The outcome will be attained through a project implementation strategy that views the CoG institutions as part of a “whole” and is based on the assumption that every organization is a “system,” composed of a set of interacting functional “domains” that need to work well together to enable overall good organizational performance. The project document envisages a “systems approach” that will simultaneously address the improvement of the following six key inter-related domains:

1. Physical facilities
2. Information Technology
3. Administrative Work Processes
4. Training
5. Organization
6. Policy Facilitation & Decision Making Processes

Achievements:

Facilities Domain:

The OAA building renovation and CoS administration building design have been completed. Six companies have submitted bids to conduct the construction of the new CoS Administration building and, after the successful firm is selected, it is expected that construction will commence in early 2008.

Information Technology:

• The OAA secure server infrastructure has been completed and additional feature have been added to enable greater stability and easier management by the OAA IT staff.
• The OAA website has been designed and launched and control handed over from the contracted IT firm to OAA IT officials.
• The ICT manager has been mentored to prepare mid- and long-term strategic ICT plans and to develop standard practices and policies.
• IT training and 490 hours of onsite mentoring of ICT managers and staff have been delivered.
• A wireless connectivity project at the palace to connect four key palace buildings has been initiated
• The Presidential website is up and running.

Administrative Work Process:

• Initiated “Transformation of Documents and Relations Project” and the “Kitchen/Warehouse Procurement Pilot Project”.
• Annual Report for the Deputy Chief of Staff produced and presented to the President.
• An Administrative Work Process Improvement Guide was developed in English and Dari.
• A process map for Procurement as defined by the Procurement Law has been completed.
• The OAA Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate strategy has been overhauled.
• A reform of the Office of the Presidential Spokesperson has been undertaken.

Training:

• 1-year comprehensive training strategy for officers and staff at all levels has been designed for OAA and CoS.
• Two new training centers operationalized, over 250 staff enrolled in daily English language and Computer classes;
• Development of training data base to manage training functions is in progress;
Overseas training programmes and study missions carried out to attend a high-level Senior Managers Training Program at the National University of Singapore, and a conference on “Making Government Gender Responsive” in the Philippines.
• Exposure visits have been made by members of the OAA senior management to the Administrative Staff College in Hyderabad, India, the prestigious Senior Managers’ Training Program at the National University of Singapore, and the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Organization:

• HRM policies and procedures have been reviewed and approximately 120 hours of onsite HRM mentoring provided on merit based recruitment procedures and interviewing skills.
• A fundamental HRM training course has been identified and modified.
• “Leave Request and Approval” and “Job Application” forms have been developed and over 60 Job Descriptions prepared.

Policy and Decision Making Process:

• The current policy process mapping for the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Economy, and the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation completed.
• A Cabinet Liaison Officer (CLO) program has been designed and launched to help improve Cabinet meeting coordination process among the 26 ministries.
• Mission statements, Terms of Reference, meeting agenda and Job descriptions for the CoS office have been prepared
• Joint SCoG-OAA and SCoG-CoS policy working groups have been established to handle policy related issues in a timely and professional manner.
• A new format for policy submissions has been developed and approved by the SCoG-OAA policy group and the Cabinet.

Future Priorities:

• Review the need for changes to the scope of the project and identify funding requirements and potential donor(s);
• Identify policy and operational process improvement opportunities for Chief of Staff Office and OAA.
• Define a new organizational structure to include all OAA’s Ajir staff in PRR process;.
• Permanent server room construction, electrical conditioning and cabling ;
• Develop a new CoS organizational structure, especially the Office of President Programs that will manage the president’s schedule and correspondence.
• Operationalize the policy resource center, building the capacity of the new M&E unit, the policy directorate and improving the work process of the Cabinet Secretariat.

Challenges and Risks:

• Changing of CoS and OAA leadership may have an adverse impact on the implementation of the program.
• Changes in the scope of the project may require additional funding from other donor(s). Unless the required new funding is secured, the project’s expected outcomes/outputs might not be fully achieved.

Partnerships and Resources:

Target Budget: USD 17 Million
Received Budget: USD 10,760,710
Commitment: USD 15,350,101
Shortfall: USD 1,649,899
Donors: UNDP, USAID and DFID

Focal points:

Dilawar Khan, Programme Officer (dilawar.khan@undp.org)
Abdel Ellah Sediqi, National Project Manager (abdelellah.sediqi@undp.org)

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