Since 2001, after the collapse of Taliban in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its allied partners, including the international community made tremendous efforts in the reconstruction process of the country with unlimited funds on various aspects, with particular focus on education, women rights, child protection, social and political growth.
After their twelve years of constant efforts in the country the corruption, lack of transparency created hurdle in spending the development projects equally in every province and this has created big questions by the international community and other local authorities recently.
Keeping in mind the undergoing and profound challenges regarding the implementation of development projects in all provinces, on Sunday, November 25, Afghan senators strongly criticized the government over the unequal implementation of development projects in the right provinces in the last 12 years.
Najiba Hussaini one of the Afghan senators added that all Afghans have equal rights to be benefited from the development projects being funded by foreign countries. While speaking to the media, the senators strongly stated that the Ministries of Public Work, Agriculture and Rural Rehabilitation all are responsible for lack of transparency in equal implementation of the development projects in all provinces.
Senator Abdul Hanan Haqwayoun while speaking to media said that the ministries are mainly responsible for the unequal implementation of the development projects. The projects were implemented only in the provinces with strong recommendations while most of the provinces where people are severely suffering from the lack of basic living facilities have not been benefited from these development projects in the last 12 years of international community's involvement. They willingly ignored certain provinces with no recommendations.
Senator Bashir Ahmad Samim in this regard said that lack of proper assessments, monitoring and evaluation from the development projects in the last 12 years are the main causes for the waste of projects and money in unnecessary provinces. Some projects being spent in some unnecessary provinces could save dozens of lives of most vulnerable and excluded communities.
In response to the senators' blame for the unequal distribution of development projects, the ministries defended their activities. The head of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock Mohammad Asif Rahim said that lack of enough budget did not allow us have full coverage in all provinces. Rahimi while talking to media said that we did not yet receive any positive response on our next year's development budget to meet all the needs of the residents in the country.
Wais Ahmad Barmak, head of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, said that the insecurity situation in some of the provinces where we had our development intervention did not allow us to succeed. The insecure situation became the main cause to phase out from some of the provinces where we were working.
In this regard, Barmak Nasirian also added that we had bold achievements in the first phase of the National Solidarity Program, which was launched in 34 provinces. We have also in our plan to initiate implementing our projects in some of the province as the security situation improves. He further added, "Right now we have prioritized 63 small projects for the next year, which require $369m. If we do not meet this amount, we won't be able to implement all the projects."
Above all, we have truly not seen visible changes in the life of the communities since 2001 with our development projects. If we had, it was limited to those with power and recommendations. The unequal implementation of the development projects must be investigated. For the next coming years, there must be monthly assessments, monitoring and evaluation from the projects, during the implementation and after the implementation so as to make sure the projects are running smoothly and that there is transparency in the implementation of all the projects in all the under operation provinces.