Characteristics of household members

6.5.4 Access to land and services

In view of the finding that the majority of households is engaged in any type of farming Section 5.2, access to land is a key factor for Afghan livelihoods. Poverty is intricately related to access to land and the various arrangements that provide access. Thus, as indicated in Figure 6.8, the lowest proportion of poor households 26 percent is found among those that own land and the highest 42 percent among those that do not own land themselves, but have access only through renting, sharecropping or mortgaging land. The combination category of households that own land and cultivate land on the basis of these other arrangements takes an intermediate position. Figure 6.8 Percentage of poor households, by access to land and selected services These figures could suggest that land ownership, even more than access to land, is a barrier against the risk of falling to poverty. However, it could also be that poverty is a barrier to acquiring land, thereby reverse the line of causality. Households without access have a higher risk of being poor than households owning land, but a smaller likelihood than those relying on other arrangements to cultivate land. This group also includes households that are engaged in other economic activities to provide a living. With regard to the correlations between poverty and access to the services presented in Figure 6.8, it is more evident that generally access can be considered the dependent variable, although richer households also tend to live in locations with better service provision. Nationally, 27 percent of the population has access to improved drinking water, 5 percent has access to improved sanitation, and 42 percent has access to any source of electricity see Section 9.3. To the extent that poverty is indeed a determinant of these levels of access, there is considerable effect on the access to any of the services, but particularly on access to improved sanitation. Poverty incidence and poverty profiling 63 Poverty incidence and poverty profiling 64

6.6 Conclusions

The present analysis offers various opportunities to mitigate the effects of poverty through well-designed and targeted policies. In particular, the correlates of poverty identify population pockets where disproportionate poverty prevails, such as female-headed households, the disabled, the unemployed and workers in specific economic sectors. At the same time, it suggests potential handles for intervention strategies, which may refer to employment and education opportunities including adult literacy programmes, family planning services, facilitation of labour migration and access to land, and rehabilitation of irrigation systems see also chapter 5 on agriculture and Section 11.3 on community preferences. In addition, the analysis identifies areas that can be addressed to improve the wellbeing of the poor by extending access to safe drinking water, improved sanitation and electricity, as well as providing other basic infrastructure. It should be noticed that this report only touches a fraction of the poverty-relevant material that is included in the NRVA data. It is strongly recommended to facilitate more detailed and in-depth research into the covariates and consequences of poverty. In particular, multivariate regression analysis is required to identify the possible and likely interaction between various factors and specify their net effect on poverty beyond the present simple bivariate results. Education 65 7 Education SUMMARY. The overall indicators of education and literacy in Afghanistan relect an education system that has performed very poorly. In addition, they invariably show very large gender gaps. Overall, only 17 percent of the population aged 25 years and over has attended any type of formal education, and the corresponding igure for women is as low as 6 percent. This manifests the lack of human capital in the country, which is required for good public administration and strong private sectors in the economy. The low literacy rates – 26 percent of the total adult population, and 12 and 39 percent for females and males, respectively – also imply that the large majority of people is denied access to much information relevant to them and to further personal development. Despite these extremely poor overall indicators, there are signs of strong improvement in recent years, probably since the overthrow of the Taliban regime. Although still 2.3 million primary-school age children are not attending primary school, the net primary enrolment ratio reported in the NRVA 20078 is 52 percent against 37 percent in the 2005 round. Analysis of literacy by age also supports this sign of improvement of the education system. In the youngest age groups beyond primary school age literacy rates rise sharply. This suggests that after decades of stagnation, male literacy increases from around 30 to 62 percent in the youngest age group, and female literacy from below 10 to 37 percent. In addition, the literacy gender gap has started to narrow, indicating that educational improvement has especially beneitted girls. This effect is, however, particularly observed in urban areas; in rural areas the absolute gap between male and female literacy rates is largely maintained. The rural population lags behind in educational development to the extent that literacy rates and gender gap indicators of the youngest age groups is now at the level of the urban population at the start of the observed recent surge in literacy levels.

7.1 Introduction

Education is one of the most important aspects of human development. The Convention on the Rights of the Child – the most widely ratified human rights treaty – enshrines the right of all children to a primary education that will give them the skills they need to continue learning throughout life. Yet, a large majority of Afghan people have been denied this right, most of them women and girls. Consequently, they are bereft of many opportunities for personal development and contributions to society. The present chapter starts out with an assessment of the main findings of the 20078 survey on literacy, one of the key effects of education Section 7.2. Subsequently, Section 7.3 addresses the present performance of Afghanistan’s educational system by reviewing attendance and non-attendance, and some of their backgrounds. Finally, a brief section 7.4 is dedicated to the accumulated human capital in terms of highest educational levels attained by Afghanistan’s adult population. The chapter also presents most of the education-related MDG indicators.

7.2 Literacy

Literacy generally denotes the ability to read and write and to use written words in everyday life. Literacy is one of the intended outcomes of education, as well as a measure of a person’s ability to function in society and his or her potential for further intellectual growth and contribution to economic and socio-cultural development of society. The complementary illiteracy indicates the extent of need for policies and efforts in organizing adult literacy programmes and quality primary education. The adult literacy rate – referring to the population age 15 and over – indicates the accumulated achievement of primary education and literacy programmes in providing basic literacy skills to the population. Table 7.1 shows very low adult literacy rates for Afghanistan, also compared to its neighbouring countries. The difference between male and female literacy – 39 and 12 percent, respectively is very large with 27 percentage points. The gender gap expressed as a ratio shows that the female literacy rate is only 32 percent of the male rate. This ratio calculated for the youth sub-population is one of the MDG indicators to measures progress towards gender equity see the box on MDG Indicator 10 below. Self-reported literacy In surveys it is often observed that people overstate their ability to read and write because they may be reluctant to admit to their illiteracy. In addition, if one household respondent, such as the household head, reports on literacy for all household members, he or she may be mistaken in literacy of other household members. The 20078 NRVA included a request to the male household head and to the primary female household member to read a sentence from a flash card in order to check the self- reported literacy. Tested and self-reported literacy were remarkably similar. This suggests that literacy figures of the survey have a high validity.