12 Recommendations
The NRVA 20078 is the most comprehensive source of statistical information about Afghanistan to date. It has been the product of close collaboration between the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and the Central Statistics
Organisation, with financial support of the European Commission and valuable input from various line ministries and international agencies. The present NRVA also built on the experiences of the two previous rounds of NRVA. Thereby,
NRVA has not only filled a large gap in key indicators required for development planning, it also contributed to important capacity building in fieldwork operations, sampling, data processing, conceptualisation of development issues, and
statistical and policy analysis.
The main conclusions contained in this report are provided in the summaries at the start of each chapter and in the executive summary at the beginning of this report. This chapter will focus on main recommendations that can be drawn
from the history of the NRVA.
12.1 Policy recommendations
As far as policy recommendations are concerned, it is the primary responsibility of the ministries to draw conclusions from the findings in this report, and preferably from additional analysis of the NRVA data. Although it is in no way the
explicit task of the present report, in several sections statistical finding have been translated into policy clues. Therefore, at this place it is opportune to transcend the topical character of the various chapters and reflect some of the main
considerations, without the aim of being anywhere close to comprehensive.
The NRVA analysis shows widespread and often severe poverty, and it is obvious that those who cannot meet their basic needs are a primary target group for poverty alleviation. However, the poverty pattern also shows that of those who are not immediately
threatened in their survival, many are very close to falling into absolute poverty and that only very few live in affluence. This means that almost any development programme in Afghanistan will benefit people who face severe challenges.
A finding with major policy implications is also that consistently and in every development area, women and Kuchis are disproportionally disadvantaged. Almost invariantly also conditions in urban areas are better than in rural areas,
even though urban conditions are very poor in any international standard. Such and similar observations were made in previous studies, but never in a way as comprehensive and nationally representative as in the present NRVA. The
NRVA updates and substantiates most of these claims and makes corrections to few others. More specific target groups were identified in this report, including unemployed youth and educated women, girls in early marriage and generally
adolescent girls, widows, and female-headed households, among others.
An issue that impacts on almost every development area – employment, education, health, food security, poverty, the position of women, environmental degradation, to name just a few – is Afghanistan’s rapid population growth. Although an
exact estimate of population growth is not possible on the basis of NRVA data, the population structure and the estimated total fertility rate sufficiently indicate that population growth is very high. As a consequence, increasingly larger birth
cohorts add every year to the pressure on, for instance the education system and the labour market, which are already over-burdened and incapable to absorb the present number of school-age children and labour force, respectively. Having
many children is one of the factors explaining household poverty and food insecurity, and the present very high fertility unquestionably means that women and infants alike pay a high price in terms of health impairment and death. It also
implies a high burden for Afghanistan’s fragile health system and an additional barrier for Afghan women to be educated, to be gainfully employed and to seize other opportunities for personal development. A comprehensive population policy
aiming at reducing unsustainable fertility – necessarily including the individual perspectives of reproductive and child health, as well as societal considerations and cultural sensitivities – is at the very basis of development of Afghanistan.
The health system shows real signs of recovery, but is still incapable of servicing the Afghan population to an acceptable degree. Distance to health centres and lack of female staff especially deprives women of the possibility to access health
facilities, implying that gender-specific perspectives are an essential part of policies aiming at health system improvement.
Improvement of the education system is also convincingly demonstrated in the NRVA analysis, although again present levels of school enrolment and literacy are very inadequate. Improvement of the quality of human capital by means
of education is indispensible for the development of Afghanistan’s governance and economy, as well as for improving conditions at the individual and household levels. In view of their disadvantaged positions, girls, rural populations and
adult illiterates should be among the primary target groups for education strategies.
Conclusions and Recommendations
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Conclusions and Recommendations
