Access to information Final NRVA 2005 Report

Afghanistan NRVA 2005 22 The situation in the rural areas is different: 48 of all households do not have a deed. Panjsher 99 and Paktya 93 are the provinces where there are hardly any deeds registered. Of the deeds being registered, 26 are registered in court Logar with 55 and Bamyan with 54 are the highest, 13 are recorded locally and 5 elsewhere. In rural Afghanistan housing registration has not taken place, so some provinces with limited number of urban households have been considered as rural. The reported deed registration in the court or Mazkan may be of those who live within the urban areas of these provinces, or some rural households refer to the deed they have for the land where they have built their houses. The majority 64 of Kuchi households do not have a deed and 20 of households have their deeds registered in court this maybe the deed of the land where the house was built. Only 2 have had a dispute over land during recent years. As already mentioned, most houses are being owned by their dwellers. As a result 96 of all households do not pay any rent. Those households that pay rent in all the sample average AFG 2,700 per month. The rural average is AFG 1,448 and the urban average is twice as much AFG 2,922. Overall, the highest debts related to housing are in the urban areas 11 of households followed by 9 of the rural households and only 2 of Kuchi households have one. Fifty-three percent of households in Nuristan have debts. In Nuristan there is a common practice of obtaining goods on credit, and there is a time of the year generally autumn when they sell their animals to pay back their loans. Table 10: Outstanding debt on housing Categories No Yes Kuchi 98 2 Rural 91 9 Urban 89 11 National 91 9 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