CDCs Promote Positive Perceptions among Villagers

Once a democratic Community Development Council (CDC) has been established by the Citizens’ Charter National Priority Program of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD/CCNPP) in Adalat Talani village of Terinkot the center of Uruzgan province, the CDC members in consultation with the villagers chose to construct a much-needed protection wall to provide safety to the villagers’ agricultural lands which support the community economy.  

The protection wall 500 meters in length helped protect 1,000 jirabs (200 hectares) of agricultural land and around 300 jirabs (60 hectares) of orchards against the season floods that would cause a huge disaster every year.

According to the CDC Head, the CDC has completed the project work in coordination with the villagers and community elders successfully. In the beginning, the 500-meter protection wall financed by the MRRD/CCNPP did help one way or another to protect the villagers’ properties to a desirable extent. However, the torrential rains and heavy floods this year seriously damaged another part of villagers’ agricultural lands other than that protected by the Citizens’ Charter funded protection wall. Since the villagers have fully utilized their allocated funds for the selected project, they could not request another budget for the rest of the land which was at imminent risk. Therefore, the villagers came together and decided to build the extra protection wall to safeguard the rest of their lands against floods by themselves through a traditional practice called Hashar (it is a norm in Afghanistan in which every able-bodied community member contributes labor or even money to some collective good in the village).