The ARTF at Work

Back to Home
Building Rural Roads Builds Better Lives
Over 3000 kilometers of rural roads have been rehabilitated or built, connecting 20 percent of Afghanistan's villages.

Improved connectivity to district and provincial centers has reduced villagers isolation
Improved connectivity to district and provincial centers has reduced villagers' isolation, enabling them to bring in essential supplies and access medical help for the sick and infirm
Rural roads are critical for improving the lives of the Afghan people, the vast majority of whom live in abject poverty in the countryside. For centuries, narrow paths and mule tracks have been their only means of contact with the outside world; three decades of conflict and upheaval have only made matters worse. It is arduous for children to reach school and for families to reach medical help in time. Without access to markets, villagers are unable to earn more from their land or develop other sources of income. The lack of licit livelihoods has driven some farmers to poppy cultivation.

The government's National Rural Access Program (NRAP) – one of its four national priority programs - is working to provide all-weather rural roads in all 34 provinces of the country. Since 2003, when the program began, the ARTF has provided $53 million out of the total donor funding for the program of almost $300 million. Now, ARTF donors are enabling a substantial expansion of the program to connect more villages to their district and provincial centers. Until now, only 20 percent of Afghanistan’s 38,000 or so villages have been connected.

Children, especially girls, can get to school more easily where there is a road
Children, especially girls, can get to school more easily where there is a road

So far, the program has rehabilitated or built over 3,000 kilometers of rural roads in 8,500 villages. It has also rehabilitated 15,000 hectares of land by improving irrigation and drainage. In areas where security is a challenge and contractors find it difficult to operate, local communities have been contracted to rehabilitate their earthen roads to standards that they can fulfill.

Construction works under the project have generated 5.4 million days of short-term employment for impoverished rural men, effecting cash transfers of $20-30 million for work carried out by them under the project.

 

Afghan Voices

Twenty kilometers of all-weather roads have recently linked nine villages in the Shahr-e-Buzurg district of Afghanistan's northern-eastern Badakhshan province to their district center. The roads were rehabilitated or built anew under NRAP and greeted with enthusiasm by community leaders:

New roads make it possible for villagers to sell their produce in distant markets and earn better incomes
New roads make it possible for villagers to sell their produce in distant markets and earn better incomes
When we had no road, the old and the sick had to ride on donkeys to get medical help or walk for over four hours to reach the nearest health center. The women had no option but to deliver their babies at home, and many died in childbirth. Now, all this has changed. The road has saved many lives. - Haji Mirza, elder, Baghak Village.
Our village is full of orchards. But we could never take our fruits to market because there was no road. People didn't value their trees and would cut them down for firewood. A few months ago we got a road. Now, for the first time, some villagers have taken their fruits to market. The rest are keen to do so too, and are working to develop their orchards. We hope to earn good money. - Haji Alim, community elder, Korayi Mabain Village.
As our village has no high school, our children could never study after class 6. But now that we have a road, we can send them to the high school at the district center. It used to take five hours to walk there. Now, it takes only one. - Sabroddin, head of shura, Chawgani Village.
Back to Home