Intensified UN employment projects could help address insecurity in Afghanistan

The United Nations is helping the Government of Afghanistan to create employment opportunities, particularly in the rural areas, which could go a long way towards addressing current security problems in the country, a UN official said today in Kabul.

Gary Helseth, country coordinator for the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), told a press briefing that at the beginning of the year, the Government, with World Bank funding, entered into a labour-intensive works project with the Ministry of Public Works. That programme has, in the past two months, been able to reach almost half of the provinces of Afghanistan.

"We have already seen 1.1 million labour days provided to rural Afghanistan," he noted.

Another encouraging sign is that an additional $25 million agreement was signed last week by the Minister of Finance and the World Bank to start the National Emergency Employment Programme (NEEP), which is tagging onto the existing labour-intensive works programme, Mr. Helseth added.

Building on these ongoing efforts, NEEP planned to integrate other government ministries in various projects, such as those to build avalanche structures with communities and rock structures to divert future avalanches. "Using labour-intensive methods we can do avalanche control," he said.

"With the Ministry of Irrigation, Water Resources and Environment we have irrigation works, and the new forestry programme called the Afghan Conservation Corps. We already have funds received which will put people out, planting trees, building nurseries, and looking at pistachio plantations in the west," Mr. Helseth told reporters.

He reiterated that NEEP is not a programme that is hitting a few of the "easy to reach" areas. "Obviously security has slowed us down in some areas and we haven't gotten all over Afghanistan," Mr. Helseth said, explaining that there were genuine attempts clearly to get everywhere and to expand the programme.

"We are already looking at $40 million that the government is investing in this with plans to do a lot more. There are opportunities for donors to put trust fund money together and target different sectors - whether its roads or schools or trees," he added.