Health care Final NRVA 2005 Report
Afghanistan
NRVA 2005 23
The local enumerators were instructed to assess the quality of housing of the surveyed households. This assessment can only be subjective, most likely also
relative to their own house when judging other houses. Another factor compounding the subjective assessment is that these questions were included in the male part of
the questionnaire; traditionally, the rooms for receiving guests are separate, so it was difficult to quantify their judgment without having access to all rooms of the house.
In some parts of the country such as the east, in the summer when the assessment took place the reserved place for male guests is outside, in front of the house
Dera. The lack of access to the main house made it difficult to evaluate the quality of the house. Male enumerators in such circumstances were advised to ask the
female enumerators to evaluate the housing condition as they conducted the interview inside of the house. However, equivalence of male and female
assessments is relative. Taking this into account, 43 of all dwellings were considered to be in a good condition windows and doors present and a non
leaking roof, 20 of all houses had one or more deficiencies of doors, windows or roof. Thirteen percent of all households live in poor housing conditions. Furthermore,
9 live in a temporary structure that can be described as being good, while 6 live in a poor temporary structure.
Table 11: Housing condition
Categories Non leaking
windows, doors, roof
Leaking windows,
doors, roof Traditional
ten t
Relief tent Temporar
y
struc tur
e -
good Temporar
y
struc tur
e -
bad Incomplete
struc tur
e Poor
Kuchi 11 4
66 4
2 3
2 8 Rural
43 23 1 8
6 5 14
Urban 51
13 0 15
8 4 8
National 43 20 4
9 6
5 13
Out of all Kuchi households interviewed, 66 lived in traditional tents at the time of the interview, these figures includes semi-nomadic populations, who stay in tents
during summer. In the urban areas, 51 of all houses were in good condition, ranging from 2 in Nangarhar to 73 in Kunduz. The highest proportion of
temporary structures was 16 in Hirat; out of those, 51 are of good quality and 12 of poor quality.
In the rural areas the housing assessed with good quality was 43, and 23 was poor. The highest quality of houses was assessed in Paktika and Bamyan about
90; this figure may be biased by the local enumerators that compared their own housing with those of interviewees; housing in Bamyan generally looks among the
poorest in the country. Ghazni and Zabul had the highest number of temporary structures. Overall, very few households 3 own a second dwelling. The
difference between urban and rural areas is negligible. Ten percent of Kuchi households possess an alternative dwelling; most likely their winter housing.
Table 12: Ownership of second dwelling
Categories No
Yes
Kuchi 90 10
Rural 98 2
Urban 97 3
National 97 3
Afghanistan
NRVA 2005 24