14 NOVEMBER 2011 | NANGARHAR, AFGHANISTAN

 

Community Development Council members meet regularly with local government representatives in the community center, which has played a significant role in bridging the gap between the community and the local government.

 

Deh Sabz District is located northeast of Kabul City between Kabul and Jalalabad. Due to its location along a major road corridor and current instability, it is a priority district for USAID.

 

Community members in the district formed a Community Development Council in 2009 to discuss community priorities and grievances. Due to a lack of funding at the time of construction, the Deh Sabz council center did not have furniture or the sound equipment necessary to hold large meetings. This inhibited the community from using the space for official meetings resulting in very limited interaction between the community and local government.

 

To address this challenge, the council obtained a grant from USAID to acquire furniture for the center. The community implemented the project in coordination with the district governor.

 

At the closing ceremony for the project in August 2011, the district governor of Deh Sabz stated, “Now that we have a furnished council center in our district, we can interact with the community through council members more often and address community grievances much sooner than before. This has improved governance capacity and has increased community’s trust in the local government, creating a foundation for future community-government collaboration.”

 

Council members and local government representatives now meet regularly in the community center, and frequent interaction has improved community’s engagement with the local government to address the priority grievances of the community. A member of the council said, “In the past, we rarely met a local government representative, but now we can discuss our concerns with our government any time.”