IRIN-News.org
After a decade of a lack of reliable
information, Afghanistan launched its first-ever National Human
Development Report (NHDR) on Monday.
The report - entitled
"Security with a Human Face" and based on two years' work by the
government and the United Nations - is expected to help policy makers
and stakeholders in the post-conflict country where there has been very
little relevant or reliable information.
The data in the report
may help to avoid what some fear: that while many gains have been made
in the past two years, the country could still fall into a cycle of
conflict and instability unless people's genuine grievances regarding
unemployment, health, education and poverty are dealt with adequately.
Amongst
the key statistical findings, the report shows that Afghanistan's Human
Development Index (HDI) falls close to the bottom of the 177 countries
ranked by the global Human Development Report 2004, way behind all of
its neighbours and only just above Burundi, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger
and Sierra Leone.
"Security with a Human Face" also provides
shocking findings, including the fact that every 30 minutes a woman in
Afghanistan dies from pregnancy-related causes. It also notes that 20
percent of children die before the age of five and that more than
300,000 children may have perished during the conflict.
It also
says that the poorest 30 percent of the population receive only 9
percent of the national income, while the upper 30 percent receive 55
per cent.
"It is very significant that the report has been
produced by Afghans that are independent from the government and the UN
system, and that this is the first time that Afghanistan has produced
such a report," Hanif Atmar, Afghan minister of rural rehabilitation
and development, told IRIN after the report's launch in the capital,
Kabul.
"This is a report which tells you what the situation
looks like, and what the government and the international community
should do."
Other findings indicate that life expectancy, at
44.5 years, is 20 years lower than in all of the neighbouring countries
and 6.1 years lower than the average of least developed countries. It
also says that only 28.7 percent of Afghans over the age of 15 can read
and write.
Atmar said the report also warned that over 61
percent of all children are not enrolled in school, with the figure for
girls being over 80 percent.
According to the minister, the
report provides guidance for the government in terms of policy
targeting and is a tool for building accountability. "The government
will be held accountable for the progress it makes or the failures it
might make in terms of changing the situation that has been portrayed
in this report."
The report is based on research papers,
interviews with people and consultations with elders, scholars and
anyone with an opinion on the issue.
The Afghanistan NHDR
embodies the idea that human security is not a privilege but a public
good to which every Afghan is equally entitled. "Human security should
not be just the end of war or the ability to survive, but also the
chance to live a life of dignity and have an adequate livelihood," the
report stresses.
Human development reports are sponsored by the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) globally and are produced
as analytical and policy tools designed to promote the concept of human
development. Since 1992, over 479 NHDRs have been produced by 130
countries, identifying many issues of importance.
The UNDP has
also produced annual global human development reports which calculate
the Human Development Index, ranking about 175 participating countries.
One
of the real challenges for policy-making in Afghanistan is the limited
amount of reliable data and analysis to inform policy makers and
practitioners.
Researchers and policy makers in Kabul welcomed
the launch of the Afghanistan NHDR. "The NHDR is a very significant
report as it presents much of the data that exists on the state of
human development in Afghanistan," Andrew Wilder, director of the
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), told IRIN.
According
to the United Nations in Kabul, the Afghan NHDR was initiated in April
2003 by the government of Afghanistan and UNDP, with financial support
from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the World
Bank.
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