The National Solidarity Programme (NSP) is the largest development program in Afghanistan. It seeks to improve the access of rural villagers to basic services and to create a foundation of village governance based on democratic processes and female participation.
This impact evaluation (NSP-IE) is a multi-year randomized control trial designed to measure the effects of implementation of the second phase of NSP on a broad range of economic, political, and social indicators. The sample for study consists of 500 villages, out of which half received NSP.
The study tests a series of hypotheses which examine the impacts at midline and endline of NSP on the access of villagers to utilities, services and infrastructure; on the economic welfare of villagers; on local governance; on political attitudes and state-building; and on social norms.
Key findings:
- NSP-funded utilities projects deliver substantial increases in access to drinking water and electricity, but infrastructure projects are less effective. As a consequence, NSP has limited impacts on long-term economic outcomes such as consumption or asset ownership. Project implementation and the accompanying infusion of block grant resources do, though, deliver a short-term economic boost. This stimulus also improves villagers’ perceptions of central and sub-national government, as well as of allied actors such as NGOs and ISAF soldiers. However, the impact of NSP on perceptions of government weakens considerably following project completion, which suggests that government legitimacy is dependent on the regular provision of public goods and/or interaction with service providers.
- The creation of CDCs by NSP has few durable impacts on the identity or affiliation of de facto village leaders, provision of local governance services to male villagers, or the role of representative bodies in local governance.
- Moreover, NSP worsens perceptions by male villagers of local governance quality at endline. This latter result is apparently caused by the diffusion of institutional accountability due to the parallel co-existence of CDCs with customary authorities and the lack of clarity concerning the role of CDCs following project completion.
- The mandating of female participation by NSP – and the consequent female participation in project implementation – results in increased male acceptance of female participation in public life and broad-based improvements in women’s lives, encompassing increases in participation in local governance, access to counseling, and mobility. These and other economic, institutional, and social impacts of NSP further drive increases in girls’ school attendance and in women’s access to medical services, as well as improved economic perceptions among women in NSP villages.
