Building Public Spaces for the Community
Nawshad, Mazar-e-Sharif, 22 May 2018. The establishment of Community Development Councils (CDCs) as primary governance structures at subnational level is one of the priorities by the government of Afghanistan, as enshrined in the Citizen’s Charter Programme. The engagement of citizens at the neighborhood level is a great subnational success. Sidiqa, a female resident of Mazar-e-Sharif, is one of the active voices of this reform process. Elected as Deputy Head of CDC 132 in Provincial District (PD # 9) of Mazar-e-Sharif , she explains to us how engaged are today the members of her community in deciding about their most pressing issues.
“We, members of the community, decided to form a CDC and elect members through a transparent election process. I was selected as a deputy CDC. Now we meet frequently to identify the problems of the community as well as find solutions to them” Sidiqa explained.
However, one of the most pressing issues was related to the lack of dedicated space for the community meetings. “Our meetings had to take place in private houses causing a lot of tensions with my husband as well as with the family members of my female colleagues ”.
With the technical support of the UN-Habitat’s Afghanistan Urban Peace-Building Programme (AUPP), a community centre was created for the residents of Nawshad.
“The community and our families are very grateful to AUPP’s support and to the donors, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. We now arrange and organize all our official meetings with no objection from our family members, concentrating on providing solutions to the problems of our community”, Sidiqa said.
A total of 250 households, 350 families (equivalent to 2100 residents) are benefiting from this community centre which have been also used for other social events.
Strenghtening the subnational governance structures in Afghanistan through the establishment of CDCs is empowering the communities in solving their immediate problems as well as bringing safety and security among the communities.
Image of the Nawshad Community Center and Sidiqa- Mazar-e-Sharif.
For more information, please contact UN-Habitat’s Head of Communications in Afghanistan, Mr. Koussay Boulaich,