Kabul, 31 May 2018. Deba is an 11-year-old school girl from Kabul. Last week she participated in a community workshop in Kabul where residents were asked to identify priority development projects for their locality. For Deba it was very clear: she drew the school that she wants for her and her friends. “This is the school that I want for my future”, Deba said.
This visioning exercise was conducted in one of the nahias (districts) of Kabul city as part of a participatory urban planning process that assists local communities to contribute to municipal investment plans by identifying and prioritizing local infrastructure projects, and provides grants to implement the projects. This process, the ‘People’s Process’, is used to produce Strategic Nahia Action Plans, empowering urban communities to build a better Afghan future.
Establishing participatory urban planning procedures at local level is one of the priorities of City for All (CFA), a government-led programme funded by the EU and USAID and implemented with technical assistance from UN-Habitat.