Kabul, 10 May 2021-- Afghanistan Urban Safety and Security Programme (AUSSP) promotes safe, secure, and inclusive cities, working in eight strategic cities of Afghanistan. The programme reached over 4 million people across eight major cities and established the approaches to make Afghanistan cities safer, accountable and more productive. It was technically supported by UN-Habitat and financed by the Netherlands and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
The Programme benefited nearly 380,000 people in 110 prioritised safety projects implemented by community members, more than half of them being female. The programme involved over two thousand women directly in the urban development processes, community policing, and safety projects implementation . AUSSP conducted 1,126 training sessions on 11 topics related to urban safety and governance for communities and CDCs. The training sessions participated by 14,198 male and 1,392 female community members aimed at enabling them to implement their community subproject and mainstream behavioural changes for urban safety and security.
Fernando Da Cruz, the country programme manager for UN-Habitat Afghanistan, mentioned that from the first workshop conducted for government officers officers in 2019, numerous positive changes are evident, including improved governance and safety processes, coordination, and enhanced interactions with citizens and communities.
“We are happy to see initiatives, strategies, and actions established to promote best practice governance work across Afghanistan’s municipalities,” he said. :It is acknowledged that urban safety and security play a critical role and serve as the main drivers of ensuring human prosperity and living with dignity. We believe this workshop will help build networks that can assist in the exchange of views, insights, lessons and best practices to use and strengthen themselves and the citizens.”
The local government also exchanged views on how best to capitalise on emerging technologies used in the municipalities and integrate them into the provinces. All the participants were invited to connect, cooperate, manage, and lead their works to a higher level by using the recent technology and assisting in minimising the pandemic risks. Ideas and success stories shared included mobile apps used to connect the municipal systems, record and process the basic requests, and make local governments more sustainable and accountable.
Dr. Sebghatullah, the Deputy Minister for Deputy Ministry for Municipalities said, “AUSSP brought communities, line departments, and civil societies together to interact and exchange their views and find the best practices throughout the programme implementation. We celebrate our partnership, effectiveness and the efficiencies of the project and acknowledge what we could have done differently. Thousands of citizens were consulted and mobilised, and the program has successfully implemented dozens of projects.”