Afghanistan - National Solidarity Program

I love this program.

The main goal of this blog (while, I know, it gets all cloudy and muddled in tangents) is to advocate feasible, pragmatic, realistic possibilities for reform, good governance (local and state levels), and solutions to conflicts the Middle East region. (And Afghanistan/ Pakistan.)

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released a new policy brief about the National Solidarity Program (NSP) in Afghanistan; this program seems to me to epitomize successful reform and good governance:

You can even put in a little equation: indigenous + gradual = legitimate = success.

Here is little blurb form the brief:

"The NSP has become one of the government’s most successful rural development projects.4 Under the program, the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) disburses modest grants to village-level elected organiza­tions called Community Development Councils (CDCs), which in turn identify local priorities and implement small-scale development projects.5 A limited number of domestic and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) then assist the CDCs. Once a CDC agrees on a venture, $200 per family (with a ceiling of $60,000 per village) is distributed for project execution.6 Afghans contrib­ute 10 percent of project costs through cash, labor, or other means.... "

What the US does is support these operations from a distance: "A renewed U.S. commitment to funding grassroots development and governance in Afghanistan must therefore accompany the influx of troops."