Assessing the NSP: the role of accountability in reconstruction, 2006

Author: Torabi

Workable accountability mechanisms have proved crucial to the success of the Afghan National Solidarity Programme (NSP), a government-led initiative, designed to bolster support for post-conflict reconstruction across rural Afghanistan.

The NSP has established Community Development Councils (CDCs), charged with the design and implementation of local development projects in almost two-thirds of Afghanistan’s estimated 24,000 villages. By doing this, the programme aims to give the wider community a voice in how grants allocated by the government for rural infrastructure projects are spent, effectively diluting the influence of established local power holders, such as warlords, or co-opting them into the development process.

The NSP has shown the benefits of combining social and vertical accountability mechanisms. Communities themselves were in charge of the decision-making process, while international NGOs, in charge of capacity building at community level, reported back to those in charge of implementing the programme – the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and the World Bank.

The NGOs were answerable through performance, rules and guidelines to the implementing partners in an example of classic top-down accountability. For the communities implementing the programme, transparency was strived for through locally acceptable mechanisms, such as posting up expenses and community meetings. Prevalent norms also shaped accountability. In Pashtun areas, where strong social cohesion was ensured by a significant collective identity, accountability was based more on trust. Jirgas were convened in these villages when serious issues were at stake. The “trust principle” worked in many villages as an effective tool for accountability.

In other cases, community gatherings have engaged in social auditing of projects, requiring the NGOs to account for their decisions in front of villagers. This might include checking how quantities and prices for a given project have been arrived at. Bottom-up accountability was bolstered by the use of local resources and local contractors, as well as efforts to empower communities to check on implementation and procedures. All this helped ensure mutual enforceability of implemented grants from top to bottom of the programme.

The overall effectiveness of the NSP is difficult to gauge due to its multiplicity of strands, but overall, the accountability mechanisms employed have produced some positive outcomes in comparison to other reconstruction programmes. There is, however, a need for still more transparency on costs to reduce the scope for corruption at all points in the chain.