Gender and Public Participation in Afghanistan

The budget is the government’s plan for revenues and expenditure; it enables the government to deliver services to the people and implement its development plans. The Afghan budget is composed of two parts: an operating budget and a development budget. The operating budget is the part of the budget which covers operating costs or the ongoing costs of the government, such as salaries of government employees, pensions, and the maintenance costs of infrastructure and other goods and services essential for running the day-to-day activities of the government. A development budget is part of the budget that finances development projects or infrastructure programs such as the construction of roads, schools and hospitals. For better management of budgeting and planning, line ministries and budgetary units are organized in the following eight key sectors based on the national development strategy of Afghanistan:

One of the preconditions of public participation in any development is access to information. No or less availability of on-time useful information limits meaningful participation and sometimes makes it impossible. Prior to 2015, people in Afghanistan had very limited access to information at government offices. There was no law in this regard other than the very old understanding that all government information and reports were considered secret. To get official information and reports from the government offices, citizens were required to send written requests detailing why they needed such information. Sometimes, an official would even have rejected request letters to get reports or information and would ask for authorization from higher offices. In December 2014, Afghanistan passed a law on access to information, which was signed by the president. Approval of such a law was the first important step towards securing accountability and transparency. As instructed by the law, the government also established a monitoring commission on access to information in June 2015. This commission is responsible for the implementation of the access-to-information law.

The terms “participation” and “engagement” have a minor difference in meaning, but in this book, they are used interchangeably. Engagement refers to actively participating and sharing suggestions and thoughts, whereas participation can be just sitting in a meeting without an exchange of views. There are two ways for citizens to interact with the government, share their concerns and thoughts, or receive a government service: direct interaction and indirect interaction. Citizens can directly interact with government organizations and share with them thoughts and problems themselves by directly meeting with government officials or communicating with them. Alternatively, citizens could get their work done indirectly through the legislature, provincial councils, tribal or village leaders and elders as well as religious scholars (mullahs). Citizens would generally prefer direct interaction with local government offices and solve their minor issues and problems without getting assistance from others. However, the authoritative attitude of the government officers often compels applicants to seek the assistance of the legislature and tribal elders even for minor issues. Sometimes, access to members of the legislature and provincial council is also limited because of their busy schedules and strict security measures applied.

In the first chapter of this book, different levels or phases of public participation were discussed and we found that Afghanistan is at the initial levels of public participation; enough information is still not provided to the public to enable constructive and meaningful participation in budgeting, planning and oversight. In this chapter, public participation in budgeting and planning at the provincial and central levels is discussed in detail. At the central level (Kabul), ministries and parliament are the key organs responsible for making the budget process participatory; at the provincial level, provincial councils, provincial development committees, and municipalities are key organs in relation to public participation in budgeting, planning and oversight. The role of legislature and executive ministries in public participation is discussed separately in Chaps. 8 and 7 respectively. Afghanistan has a centralized governance system, and owing to a low capacity and security problems in the provinces, public participation is good at the center as compared with the provinces. Citizen participation takes place mainly in the planning and budget formulation phases of the budget process, and in the implementation and oversight phases of the budget, citizen participation is relatively weak or does not take place at all.

The distribution of national wealth and resources amongst citizens takes place through the national budget. Through the national budget, the government can also empower women and reduce gender inequality. The budget has two sides: revenue and expenditures. In the case of Afghanistan, revenues or the taxation side of the budget has less influence on national income redistribution as compared with the expenditure side of the budget because domestic revenues are low; it covers less than half of the national budget. The tax rate is progressive, meaning that as income increases the tax rate also increases. Anyone whose income is around $2000 USD or more pays 20% income tax, and the average government salary is around $300 USD. On the other hand, important public services such as education and health are free. Although the quality of education and health services is very low, it has a huge impact on women’s empowerment and gender equality.

Before we explore the role of the executive branch of government in gender and public participation in Afghanistan, it is important to briefly discuss the overall governance system of the country; Afghanistan has 34 provinces and a centralized government. The president directly appoints provincial governors. Each province has an elected provincial council and a provincial development committee that are supposed to play an important role in planning and budgeting for provincial development. Similarly the budgeting system is also centralized, the central ministries manages its budget in the provinces; however, the central government is discussing the possibilities of allocating some portion of the national budget to the provinces directly and of delegating to the provinces full control over spending of the allocated budget for implementation of projects in the provinces.

The parliament of Afghanistan, like many other such institutions, has three main functions: representation, legislation, and oversight of government activities. The degree of legislative and oversight power differs in shaping socioeconomic policies and strategies in each country. To better understand the role of the Afghan legislature in gender and participation, it is important to briefly review the structure of its parliament. The National Assembly of Afghanistan, or parliament, consists of two houses: the lower house [Wolesi Jirga] (WJ) and the upper house [Meshrano Jirga] (MJ). The WJ has 250 members elected directly by the people in a constituency, and the MJ has 102 members, one third of whom (34) are nominated by the president and the rest come [by internal election] from district and provincial councils. The WJ is more powerful than the MJ; it approves the appointment of cabinet ministers, summons them for questions and can impeach. All laws that the government drafts and submits for approval to the legislature go first to the lower house and then to the upper house for ratification, with the exception of the budget. Only the national budget comes from the upper house to the lower house for adoption. The WJ and MJ have grouped their members into different commissions. The lower house has 18 commissions or committees and the upper house has 12.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) in Afghanistan are divided into two broad categories: non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civic associations. Local NGOs are registered with the Ministry of Economy (MoEc), and foreign NGOs are registered with both the MoEc and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Civic and trade associations are registered with the Ministry of Justice. The Advisory Group on Civil Societies that works with CSOs around the world defines CSOs as the following:

CSOs include all non-market and non-state organizations outside of the family in which people organize themselves to pursue shared interests in the public domain. They cover a wide range of organizations that include membership based CSOs, cause-based CSOs, and service-oriented CSOs. Examples include community-based organizations and village associations, environmental groups, women’s rights groups, farmers’ associations, faith-based organizations, labor unions, cooperatives, professional associations, chambers of commerce, independent research institutes, and the not-for-profit media. (Advisory Group on Civil Societies, Synthesis of findings and recommendations, OECD-DAC Working Party on Aid Effectiveness, 2008, p. 7)

During the last 16 years, corruption has become a serious threat to peace and governance in Afghanistan. Governmental and non-governmental organizations as well as donors waste huge amounts of aid and domestic revenues because of corruption and inefficient expenditures. For the last few years, Afghanistan has continuously kept the title of one of the most corrupt countries in the world. According to Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perception Index report (Transparency International, Corruption Preconceptions Index 2017, Retrieved 22 February 2018, from https://​www.​transparency.​org/​news/​feature/​corruption_​perceptions_​index_​2017), Afghanistan ranks fourth, 177th out of 180 countries included in the survey. This shows that President Ghani’s anti-corruption strategy is effective. Afghanistan is no longer the first corrupt country in the world; now it is the fourth most corrupt county, after Syria, South Sudan and Somalia. It is important to know that the culture of corruption is a new phenomenon in Afghanistan, but because of continued conflict and weak rule of law that has combined with significant money flow and uncertainty in the future, it has rapidly spread across the country to all sectors of the economy and governance. Prior to the collapse of Dr. Najibullah’s government in 1992, government employees were honest and committed to serving the nation while earning very little and this was partly because of the idea of socialism and certainty in employment in the public sector, and although human rights violations were taking place, corruption was not common.