Origins of the Community Fora Programme Innovative Community Development in Mazar-e-Sharif Afghanistan 1995 - 1998
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Preface
Community development is difficult to document. So much of what goes on takes place in the minds and hearts of the residents and the "change agents" who work with them. Visible indicators are the tip of a much larger iceberg of movement, signs of a deeper willingness to come together to achieve common benefit. While this spirit of collaboration and progress is evident to even a casual observer it is hard to capture and express in a report such as this. There's always a risk that in attempting to write about the experience that it somehow loses its essence, that documenting the process squeezes the life out of it by confining a vibrant entity to mere words on paper.
Afghanistan presented additional challenges: the civil war in Mazar made it impossible to visit the city and see the process for myself. Although I was able to visit similar programme sites in Kabul, it is not the same as being in the presence of the original and feeling its energy. I had to rely on second-hand information for much of what is in this report. People who had been in Mazar and were part of the process described what they could: I caught some of it and put a bit of that on these pages. I hope that by defining the systematic approach they developed, others will be able to understand some of what happened in Mazar and will be able to build similar structures elsewhere, and that these will also come to life and nourish the people who build them.
I am indebted to a number of people, especially to Samantha Reynolds, Jolyon Leslie, Greg Wilson, Mahbooba Waiji and Dr. Mohd Dauod Eltaf of Habitat. During her visit to Canada, Rahela Hashim of Habitat was especially helpful in sharing information and preparing the final draft. Terry Standley, Mary MacMakin and Martine van Bijlert also provided helpful insights. Michael Keating, Leslie Oqvist and Maurice Dewulf of UNDP and Michael Mersereau of UNOPS shed light on the administrative and policy context within which the Habitat programme operated. My greatest gratitude is due to the many national staff who shared their thoughts on the future of their country, and those I was unable to meet but were key participants in the process.
The people who really moved me in my brief visit to Kabul, however, were the men at the District 3 Community Center, and their efforts to provide education for the girls in their neighbourhood. It was when I visited the center and saw it full of bright-eyed little girls who were trying to learn to read and write that I understood, and more importantly, felt the potential inherent in the Community Fora programme. It was awesome. It is to these girls and the women and men who were helping them that this report is dedicated.
Although this report is based on information received from a number of UN personnel and community members, the opinions expressed do not reflect the official position of the United Nations and its agencies, nor of any individual or group mentioned in the document.
Andy Tamas
Almonte, Ontario Canada
21 July 1998
Executive Summary
The Community Fora Programme is a successful UNCHS-Habitat community development initiative that began in 1995 in Mazar, Afghanistan (pop. 700,000) and has since expanded to Bamyan and Kabul. This programme is driven and operated primarily by women and directly supports the peacebuilding process that is at the core of the UN's strategy.
The eleven neighbourhood-based "Community Fora" that have been established over the past three years in districts across Mazar are sustainable multi-functional neighbourhood-based centres that provide economic, educational and social benefits to thousands of women and men throughout the city. The Fora continued to function and expand following the withdrawal of international staff in September 1997 due to security problems in the city. This sustainability shows that it is possible to do development work in the midst of a civil war, and the fact that none of the Fora were vandalized or looted during the turmoil and lawlessness – in marked contrast to most other buildings – indicates the level of ownership, care and protection that neighbourhoods assigned to these facilities.
The evolution of the Fora programme was rooted in a partnership of international and national Habitat staff and their ability to effectively engage residents in furthering their own development. They applied sound and innovative community development principles in a context in which there was no effective government and there was a strong demand for appropriately designed initiatives to improve conditions at the neighbourhood level.
The report describes how Habitat staff made contact with the community and started to learn how it really worked, and how they established relationships with key people at the neighbourhood levels who had much to offer the development process. The report also describes the administrative supports received from Habitat that made it possible for Mazar staff to implement this innovative and responsive demand-driven form of service.
As with most successful community development efforts, the evolution of the Fora programme was an ambiguous process-oriented and principle-driven activity in which patterns became evident as work progressed. Habitat staff saw that beneath the physical or technical dimension of any neighbourhood activity there rested a complex array of social and cultural dynamics, and they worked with members of the community to build institutional channels for the productive release of the energy in the population.
The scale of the Mazar Fora programme that was the result of these efforts can be illustrated by summarizing some of their services and activities:
The Fora are managed and staffed primarily by women who have been selected by their neighbours. Systematic involvement of the broader community in Fora activities is ensured through regular three-weekly meetings during which activity and financial reports and given, the community's problems are expressed, possible solutions identified and actions assigned to the people best able to address the issues.
The Centres have a well developed income generation and profit-sharing system that uses revenues from production activities to support services to the community. They have created a secondary level agency, the Community Fora Development Organization (CFDO) to support activities and on-going development of the eleven Fora in the city.
To better understand the reasons for the success of the Mazar programme this programme was compared to the PADLOS study of development activities in West Africa which identified a number of factors in effective projects: these included beginning with the women and having a significant economic dimension. The Community Fora programme reflected virtually all of the effectiveness-related factors identified in this comprehensive African study.
The report's recommendations are in three groups and can be summarized as follows: