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9.3.2 Other facilities Electricity
The access to the public electric grid at national level is 20 percent ranging from 78 percent in urban areas to 6 percent in rural areas, an increase from 14 percent in 2005. It is by far the most important source of electricity. Other supply
is provided by community generators to 15 percent of households, private generators 5 percent and a combination of other sources 3 percent. Overall, 42 percent of the population has access to any source of electricity 90 and 33
percent in urban and rural areas, respectively, which would imply an large increase from the 23 percent reported in 2005. However, it should be noted that the daily number of hours of electricity supply is limited: on average 11 hours per
day by the electric grid and lower numbers for each of the alternative sources. Access to electricity for Kuchis is very limited 6 percent due to their nomadic lifestyle.
Fuel for cooking and heating
The use of solid fuels for heating and cooking in homes usually results in incomplete combustion and hence in the emission of hundreds of
compounds, some of which may induce cancer and other health problems. It also produces greenhouse gases that contribute to global
climate change. The nature of the exposure to indoor air pollution and its consequences for health depends on the interactions between the source
of pollution fuel and stove type, its dispersion housing structure and ventilation and when household members are in the home. The type of
fuel used in cooking has consistently been the most important predictor of this exposure United Nations 2003. The proportion of population using solid fuels is included as indicator for Target
9 – sustainable development and reversion of the loss of environmental resources – has recently been removed from the international list of MDG indicators. However, it still figures in the Afghanistan National Development Strategy.
In Afghanistan, 83 percent of the population relies on solid fuels, mainly firewood, bushes and twigs 59 percent, and animal dung 23 percent. The impact on health may be considerable since in 48 percent of households cooking occurs
inside the dwelling. The present share is comparable to the one in 2005, when the dependency on solid fuels was around 85 percent. According to the NRVA 20078, the percentage of the population using solid fuels for heating in winter time
is even 98 percent.
Information and communication means
Modern information and communication technologies are important instruments in the process of development. Telephones, computers and internet allow people to exchange experiences and learn from each other, enabling higher
returns on investment and avoiding problems of duplication or missing information. They can also help people in rural areas to find out about market prices and sell their products at a better price, and can overcome traditional barriers
to better education by making books and documentation available online. They can also make governments more transparent, thereby reducing corruption and leading to better governance. The use of these technologies is included as
MDG indicators see Boxes on MDG indicators 8.14-8.16.
MDG Indicator 7.8: Proportion of population with sustainable access to an improved water source, urban and rural
According to UN guidelines, the following types of water supply are considered ‘improved’: piped water, public tap, borehole or pump,
protected well, protected spring or rainwater. They do not include vendor-provided water, bottled water, tanker trucks or unprotected
wells and springs. NRVA-based calculation of the MDG indicator 7.8 for Afghanistan
suggests 58, 20 and 16 percent access to improved water for, respectively urban, rural and Kuchi populations, and 27 percent
overall. According to UN estimates, the latter would imply that Afghanistan has the worst provision of safe drinking water in the
world.
MDG Indicator 7.9: Proportion of population with access to improved sanitation, urban and rural
Facilities such as sewers or septic tanks, poor-flush latrines and simple pit or ventilated improved pit latrines are assumed to be
adequate sanitation, provided that they are not public. In Afghanistan, only in urban areas a recognizable share of the
population – 21 percent – has access to such facilities. Improved sanitation in urban areas and for the Kuchi population are
virtually non-existing one percent or less access to improved sanitation.
The indicator of 5 percent overall access to improved sanitation ranks Afghanistan second last in the UN list of estimates.
MDG Indicator 29: Proportion of population using solid fuels
The indicator refers to the population that relies on biomass wood, charcoal, crop residues and
dung or coal as the primary source of energy for cooking and heating in the home.
In Afghanistan, 83 percent of the population uses solid fuels as the main source for cooking.
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In Afghanistan, these modern technologies are hardly available to the general population. With regard to telephone communication, the population seems to entirely skip the stage of landline phones, since only one in thousand persons
has access to a telephone line, but 6 percent has a mobile phone.
5
The corresponding figures for the urban population are higher: 5 in thousand and 17 percent, respectively.
The use of internet is also reserved for extremely small pockets in the population. Only 3 of every thousand people used internet in the month preceding the survey. This share was 4 per thousand for males, 1 per thousand for females, and
11 per thousand in urban areas.
9.4 Conclusions
The main policy areas touched upon in this chapter refer to the provision of public services for water and sanitation, since these have an immense and direct impact on basic hygiene and public health. Priority to improvement of water supply
also fully corresponds to the top ranking of development priorities by local communities. Even modest improvements in these areas could substantially reduce the high child mortality in Afghanistan see Section 3.4.2 by reducing major killer
diseases like diarrhoea. The present access of the population to safe drinking water and improved sanitation – 27 and 5 percent, respectively – are among the poorest, if not the poorest, in the world. Comparability problems with previous
surveys prohibit proper monitoring of these indicators, but available figures suggest that large improvements in recent years are unlikely. This implies that accelerated efforts are required, which in the case of safe water supply can possibly
rely on innovative and durable purification technologies.
The lack of provision of these services is part of generally very poor housing conditions in Afghanistan. The MDG indicator on the share of the urban population living in slum conditions reveals an astounding 93 percent. Besides access
to water and sanitation, the indicator also applies the criterion of secure tenancy. In the situation of Afghanistan with many people uprooted by decades of conflict, a proof of ownership of a dwelling is particularly important for property
claims in house disputes when refugees and IDPs return. The government should be prepared to issue registered deeds to the rightful owners, thereby taking precautions against possible corruption.
A fourth criterion of the mentioned MDG indicator relates to overcrowding, which is defined as households with more than three people sharing a room. To one-third of Afghan households this criterion applies, exposing the occupants
to heightened risks of infectious diseases. In-house safety is also jeopardized by the high incidence – 83 percent – of burning solid fuels for cooking and heating. Programmes to stimulate efficient types of stoves and alternative sources of
energy will contribute to health improvement, preservation of scarce resources and stalling global warming.
The provision of electricity to the population is still in an early stage, as only 20 percent is connected to the electric grid. However, this indicates a substantial increase compared to the 14 percent connection reported in the NRVA 2005.
Electricity provides a source for light, but importantly also opportunities for mass communication through radio and television. Information, education and communication IEC to the public on various themes – health, family planning,
gender equity, etc. – will therefore be more effective if electricity supply is increased. Other communication means, like mobile phones and internet, are hardly available to the general population. Only 6 percent of the population has a mobile
phone, and use of internet is negligible as of yet.
MDG Indicator 8.14 and 8.15: Telephone lines and cellular subscribers per 100 population
For the assessment of these indicators NRVA information about the availability of telephone landlines and mobile phones in the
household is used. According to this information there is 0.1 telephone line per hundred population in Afghanistan, and 6
mobile phones.
MDG Indicator 8.16: Internet users per 100 population
NRVA 20078 reports that the number of internet users per 100 population is 0.3. This figure would imply the fourth-lowest internet
use in the world after Myanmar, Sierra Leone and East Timor.
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These figures suggest a large discrepancy with the ANDS indicator that reports 21 percent mobile phone users Government of Afghanistan 2009. No source was provided for this figure, which seems rather unrealistic.
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10 Position of women
SUMMARY.
In many aspects, Afghan women and girls share the poor life conditions of their male counterparts. However, the NRVA 20078 conirms that a consistent pattern of relative deprivation for women exists across almost
all dimensions of individual and social development. Moreover, the gender gaps are large. This is the case in decision-making power at community level and the level of the household, where women depend
almost invariantly on their husbands, fathers or other families. Women’s position on the labour market is also particularly weak. They participate less in economic activities, for fewer hours and predominantly in
vulnerable employment. On the other hand, for those women who are currently active, the unemployment rate is as high as the male unemployment rate, and for the better educated women even twice as high.
The positive by-product of gender-based barriers to the labour market is that child labour to a lesser extent occurs among girls and less affects their development, for instance in terms of educational deprivation.
Also in the education sector large gender gaps persist. Literacy of women is less than one-third of that of men, but comparison of literacy across age groups shows an increase, and even an accelerating increase,
of female literacy, which strongly suggest recent improvements of the educational system. This is supported by the increase of girls’ – and overall – enrolment in primary education since 2005. Especially in urban
areas the NAPWA target of 70 percent enrolment of girls is within reach, and girls are closing the gap with boys. Besides education of new generations, Afghanistan has an adult population of 9.5 million people
who are illiterate – among whom 5.5 million women – who are in need of basic reading and writing skills. Reproductive health has a particular bearing on women and girls, as a high – but not exactly determined – price
is paid for high fertility, closely spaced births, early pregnancies and poor maternal health care in terms of antenatal and delivery care. In addition, the health system provides gender-speciic barriers to women because of their
restricted mobility and unresponsiveness by providing insuficient female health personnel. Despite the very low levels of maternal health care provision, the NRVA surveys suggest signiicant improvements in the last few years.
Also in terms of age at irst marriage – important with respect to pregnancy-related health risks – and spousal age differences – important for, for instance, more gender balance in household decision making –
noticeable changes can be observed. Increasingly smaller proportions of girls marry at young 18 and very young 15 ages, and the average age differences between wives and husbands has signiicantly declined.
An issue that is partly related to large spousal age gaps is the large number of widows in the country – over half a million. In the context of Afghanistan, these women, along with 70 thousand female heads of
households, can be classiied as vulnerable. In general, women could be considered vulnerable to the extent that they are not captured in surveys and censuses. Although in this respect NRVA 20078 performed
signiicantly better than the 2005 round, most probably a large number of women and girls are not reported. The general conclusion should be that huge challenges remain with respect to women’s mobility, participation
in public life, decision making, health, and access to economic and educational opportunities. The most urgent needs are found among the rural and Kuchi populations, and in line with that, gender gaps are usually
larger among these than in the urban population, with the notable exception of labour force participation and employment. But on the positive side, the NRVA suggests that signiicant improvements can be achieved in
a relatively short time span, as in the case of the education and health sectors.
10.1 Introduction
Whereas on most development indicators Afghanistan ranks at the very bottom end of the international community, the position and living conditions of Afghan women are particularly poor. The commitments of the Afghanistan government to
advance the status of women is embodied in various international legal and national policy frameworks, which include the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women CEDAW, the Constitution, Afghanistan Compact,
the ANDS Gender Strategy, and the National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan NAPWA Ministry of Women’s Affairs 2008. Within such frameworks, the government pays special attention to six sectors that are crucial to the overall
improvement of women’s life, namely: i security, ii legal protection and human rights, iii leadership and political participation, iv economy, work and poverty, v health, and vi education. The NRVA results in the various chapters
of this report allow insight into several of these aspects and contribute to further development and implementation of gender-sensitive development policies.
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