IRIN
AFGHANISTAN: World Bank to launch job creation programme for 10,000
31 August 2004


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

KABUL, 31 August (IRIN) - The World Bank is working to create employment
for thousands of Afghan former combatants. According to the Bank, the
three-year programme will provide immediate jobs for 10,000 unskilled
ex-soldiers and provide up to 300 former officers with employment,
training and equipment to start up small businesses.

"This project provides job opportunities for those ex-combatants who have
joined civilian life under DDR [the Disarmament, Demobilisation and
Reintegration inititiative]," Abdul Raouf Zia, an external affairs officer
for the World Bank, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Tuesday.
"It is obvious that those who spent years in military activities will need
help to join civilian life."

He said the objective of the project was to provide immediate employment
opportunities through the government's National Emergency Employment
Programme (NEEP) for ex-combatants in order to facilitate their
reintegration into civil society as a component of the broader Afghanistan
New Beginnings Programme (ANBP) and to contribute to the government's
alternative livelihood programme in opium poppy producing areas.

The government's DDR programme maintains that demobilisation of forces and
their reintegration into society are essential prerequisites for the
consolidation of the peace process and restoration of social and economic
development in the country.

The programme would also provide vocational training to 1,500
ex-combatants and would train 1,000 more in operating and maintaining road
construction equipment. The Bank noted, it expected to generate 3 million
labour days of employment for ex-combatants, rural workers in poppy
growing areas and other Afghans living in poverty.

This project will cover eight provinces of the country, Kabul, Kandahar,
Herat, Mazar, Bamyan, Konduz, Jalalabad, Paktia and Badakhshan. The money,
US $19.6 million, is coming from the Japanese government and will be
administered by the World Bank.


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004


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