During civil war in Afghanistan, this country lost all the economic growth systems and all economical sectors had been deactivated and even the production machines’ spare parts were illegally smuggled in to abroad against the low monetary value.

Afghanistan found the good opportunity in order to stand in to its feet and be witnessed the moments of its economic growth since 2006 which the rural development is one of the reasons of developments and growth.

Afghanistan has 34 provinces which most of them located in mountainous area and not civilized yet.  Rural incomes are also vary substantially between areas and regions due to the differences in developing causing from the wide level of topographic, weather and climates, locations, and other conditions across Afghanistan

The government of Afghanistan played an important role and prepared a very useful strategic plan in Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) under the frame of National Solidarity Program (NSP). The NSP has been the government of Afghanistan became flagship in rural development program and linchpin of the activities since this program was launched by the government of Afghanistan and other aid agencies.

NSP program established in MRRD frame work and prioritized the regions based on their economic growth opportunities and Nature Resources (NR) which NSP was widely recognized as one of the Key National Priority Program. Both Community Development Council (CDC) and District Development Assembly (DDA) have been drawn by NSP and brought the community in to discussion in order to solve the controversial matters and gaps which the community was not able to solve and reach to its end during decades of civil war.

I used to work in Badakhshan province in 2007 and successfully found 20 locations with water resources and implemented 20 small hydropower projects in different locations. However the program was launched by one of the NGO called International Assistance Mission (IAM), but since the CDC and DDA were there, we did not face any problem during implementation of the projects.

I was the project manager for those projects and by constructing and implementing of 20 small hydropower; I brought electricity for almost 2500 families using their water resources. The beneficiaries believed and experienced the good governance and these projects encouraged them to think more about their available resources to be used by them and get benefits from them.

Before the small hydropower were not build, the community used to buy diesel oil in order to burn during the night to provide lightness with a lot of problem. Once I was witness one of the community members purchased some litters of diesel for his lamp, but the shopkeeper mistakenly gave the purchaser the petrol not the diesel, so when the petrol burned by the purchaser the whole room was burned which his 6 months child was in the room and the child also 50% burned and it was a very shocking event for me and still the child has not been treated well.

This above mentioned article was written to show the economic growth of Afghanistan since 2004 – 11 according to my vision and understanding.

Written by: Sadaqatullah Sadiq, Feb, 22, 2013, Kabul, Afghanistan