ARTF 2014

General question: Results related to the intended outcome 2014Question: Summarise results related to the intended outcome (this information will be sent to Open Aid)Answer: i. ARTF overall During 2014, Sida's support to ARTF was divided between earmarked support to NSP and EQUIP (60 million SEK each), and 125 million in unearmarked support to ARTF in general. This accounts for 3,2 % of the total donor contributions during the year and placed Sweden as the 8th largest donor during the year, surpassed by the US, the UK, the EC/EU, Germany, Australia, Japan and Norway. The appraisal document does not include any intervention logic for the unearmarked part of the support, and no results indicators have been specified either. The unearmarked portion of the support has however helped delivering results in a broad array of interventions, that are briefly summarised here. Funds in the recurrent cost window have contributed to financing the salaries to Afghan civil servants (many of them teachers) and to incentivise reforms, e.g. improved tax collection and operation and maintenance. Around 60% of funds set aside for the incentive program were disbursed. The main reason for less than full disbursement was a slow down in tax collection, which was seen to depend not only on the slowing down of growth but also to increasing weaknesses in tax and customs administration. Therefore, only a limited incentive tranche was disbursed for tax revenue. Also, all structural benchmarks were not met, and operations and maintenace received less government funding than what was needed to trigger full disbursement. Existing projects that had been approved previously continued to perform and disbursements to them were higher than during 2013. Despite the prolonged election period and the following political transition, ARTF overall continued to disburse well into 2014, with total disbursements reaching 1 billion USD - a substantial increase from 2012. Total disbursements include 570,36 million USD under the Investment Window, 419,56 million USD under the recurrent cost window (RCW), and 14,08 million USD to the third party Monitoring and Supervisory Agents. In the investment window, the political transition period caused delays in project approval by the ARTF management committee. Only four new projects were apporoved, mainly in the infrastructure sector. The ARTF through its recurrent cost window finances a share of government salaries and wages of non-uniformed civil servants (approximately 71 % outside Kabul) and the Government’s operating and maintenance expenditures. The share of government non-security expenditure covered by the ARTF is declining every year, as the government’s operating budget increases in size, although the political stalemate during 2014 did not help increase government revenue. ii. NSP During the reporting period (2014) NSP has conducted activities according to plan, while some implementing partners have been forced to suspend their activities at times due to security concerns. However, during the period, NSP support has facilitated the election of 2030 Community Development Councils (CDCs), and assisted in re-electing 1062 CDC's. 2147 new Community Development Plans have been completed, 1549 CDP's being revised across the country and 1986 communities mobilised. The reporting period has also included the preparation of a concept note for NSP IV. The year has also seen the highest levels of female participation with regard to CDC's and project selection.At the end of the reporting period, a total of 33 922 CDC's had been established through the support of NSP. In terms of block grants, NSP disbursed block grants totaling 196 116 951 USD during 2014 (equivalent to approximately 1,677,050,000 SEK in August 2016). Through NSP, a total of 85 899 sub-projects in 33 418 communities have been established and financed. A total of 22 million right-holders are estimated to benefit from the projects under NSP with increased acccess to improved servicves such as irrigation, electricity and roads, as stated in the Scorecard for ARTF 2014. The Scorecard also state that more than 50 million labour days have been created under NSP projects. The NSP has a so called 'High Risk Area Implementation Unit' (HRAIU) that is responsible for the implementation of the 'High Risk Areas Implementation Strategy'. Throughout the reporting period, the number of high risk CDC's and provinces where the strategy is being implemented has varied. The security situation is however reported to affect the implementation of NSP. While the quarterly reports for 2014 indicate that the suspension of activities has reduced due to the strategy, security issues remain to be a hurdle for implementation across the country. During the reporting period, a concept note for NSP IV has been prepared (all though NSP IV will be replaced by the upcoming 'Citizens Charter' which is a part of the Afghan Governments new national priority programmes), a work plan and budget for 2015 prepared as well as a new and updated financial manual. The project also distributed copies of their operation and maintenance guidelines, conducted procurement training for their facilitation partners and regional managers, and conducted community empowerment training at the social organiser levels. NSP has since its inception worked towards a more equal gender balance within the project. The annual narrative report for the whole ARTF, as well as the Scorecard for ARTF 2014, indicates the work the World Bank and its implementing partners have conducted during 2014 with regard to increased gender equality. In order to support women's human capital and ability to participate more actively in various sectors, women's empowerment is taken into account. Therefore ARTF tracks and follow up on a set of issues regarding gender equality, and one such issue is the division between men and women in terms of staff, right-holders and such. For NSP, 50 % of the right-holders are women, 34 % of CDC members are female, 39 % of CDC office bearers are women, 12 % of NSP staff are female (10 % at field level and 16 % at HQ level), and out of the voluntary community monitoring teams, 41 % of the members are women. As NSP looks to increase the participation of women at various levels, the NSP has made policy changes - including a target for the proportion of women in CDCs (35 %), creating a quota for women members in each CDC, promoting CDC models where men and women sit in a mixed committee, or where there are parallel all-male and all-female committees (rather than all-male committees with all-female sub-committees, which traditionally has been common in certain areas). The NSP has also created a quota for women elected to officer positions, which is applied to CDCs who are now receiving a second block grant. Among CDCs who received their first block grant prior to the introduction of the officer quota, only 4 % of all officer positions in the CDC were held by women. For CDCs who are receiving a second block grant and for whom the quota applies, the proportion of women holding an officer position has risen to 38 %. The annual report also highlights some findings from the so called investment window supervisory agent. For the year, the supervisory agent has conducted site visits to several programmes under ARTF, one of them being NSP. For the year there are 881 inspection reports for NSP that highlight that power projects (generally micro hydropower plants) are some of the projects with highest quality and with best maintenance. The inspection reports also highlight that community centres continue to be of high quality, water well projects remain challenging due to the topology in the country as well as proper maintenance after completions and that female participation in both CDCs and project selection has exceeded historic levels during the year. iii. EQUIP During the reporting period, EQUIP II had good achievements while in certain areas due to the challenges, the results were not so forthcoming. Therefore under EQUIP II, MoE would be taking up three evaluations, including EQUIP-II overall program evaluation, sector analysis and cost-benefit analysis, and Teacher Education impact assessment to examine effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis and identify the gap areas and lessons learnt. The results of the evaluations will also feed into the design of EQUIP III. The Teachers as well as headmasters and principals were trained across the 23 provinces. Girls Scholarship Program expanded. The Teachers’ Management Information System was developed further and another 20 school projects were completed. The two semi-annual reports of EQUIP do not report on the overall picture of access to school and education in Afghanistan, the reporting is rather on an output level training of teachers and school construction. During the period a total of 122,675 (34.2% female) in-service teachers were trained in reading and literacy, numeracy, and subject areas of math, natural science, social sciences and humanities. A total of 7,612 headmasters and principals were trained across the 23 provinces. Similarly, a total of 7,906 female students received scholarships, which increased the total number of female students benefiting from the Girls Scholarship Program to around 11,436 students. Beginning in June 2014, “Inset V” training started across the country. Inset V is a ‘pedagogy-based’ in-service training package covering various topics including lesson planning, classroom management, learning concepts, and teaching strategies. Throughout the country, during the second half year of 2014, 99,494 male teachers and 55,317 female teachers were trained. The training also provided school management training packages for school principals, head masters, and administrators as 14,180 male school administrators and 3,205 female school administrators received training for better managing the school activities. In order to enhance the teaching skills of Teacher Training College in March 2014, the department launched a Master of Arts in Education program in collaboration with American University of Afghanistan for 320 faculty members. In order to encourage faculty members to travel and work in remote and insecure provinces, the department pays 10,000 Afs to them in addition to their regular monthly salaries. During the reporting period, a total of 1,028 faculty members in 22 provinces benefited from the program. To encourage female students into join Teacher Training Colleges, monthly scholarships are paid to them in 25 target provinces. During the second half of 2014, 8,630 female students received monthly scholarships. Evidence of the effectiveness of the scholarship is the highest increase of newly enrolled female students in Kandahar, Nuristan and Khost respectively which are provinces characterised by insecurity and cultural barriers in terms of women’s mobility and public appearance. For example, compared to last year, the number of female students in Kandahar increased from 11 to 213, in Nuristan from 10 to 67 and in Khost from 9 to 25. A significant breakthrough for the GSP program this year has been the enrolment of female students for the first time in Zabul and Paktika. Teachers’ Management Information System made achievements including designing data, capturing formats and collecting the required information on lecturers as well as students. The system can now generate geo-maps and data in visually presented formats. Teacher Education General Directorate in collaboration with the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), also designed a Master’s Degree program in Education for 320 instructors. The program seeks to improve the teacher’s effectiveness as teacher trainers and advance their teaching careers. Currently, the program is finishing its second semesters, has enrolled 320 individuals of which 80 are female. Out of the total 1,347 projects planned under EQUIP I & II, 585 projects were completed by the. 310 projects are partially completed and 91 projects are ongoing. 25 other projects have not yet started while 77 projects are problematic and 236 projects are under procurement. 10 projects are demolished and 13 are awarded but not started. During the last six months of 2014, a total of 92 National Competitive Bidding, NCB processes and 20 school projects have been completed. The design section of Infrastructure Services Department has revised technical documents of 39 types of typical school buildings incorporating the comments provided by World Bank technical consultant. In addition, the design and estimation of 32 projects (S-CB & PP-NCB) have been completed and submitted to procurement. The design and estimation of Missing Components for 16 provinces (569 projects) is completed and 469 other projects are under the process of design and estimation. The first regional School Management Shura experience sharing conference in Jalalabad was a hallmark of SMU efforts in acknowledging community participation, ownership of the process and contribution of SMSs, in the cause of quality education for all especially girl child. During July to December 2014, 210 School Management Shuras were developed and 263 School Im-provement Plans were developed. The overall number of School Management Shuras and SIPs reached 14,432 and 14,234 respectively. At present, there are more than 1,400 Technical Advisors in various MoE departments that are funded through EQUIP. In 2014, as a result of structural changes in EQUIP, a new HR Unit was established which is dedicated only to EQUIP. In second half of 2014 though, EQUIP has done very little recruitment due to the presidential election and the presidential decree, which prevented hiring new staff or terminating the existing staff. During this period, the HR team of EQUIP focused on important issues like degree verification, contract extensions, performance appraisal, implementing CBR salary scale, and rationalisation of all positions funded through EQUIP. The reports highlight challenges in carrying out the program. Insecurity is significant in reaching out to remote districts. Examples of such districts include Dawlat Shah in Laghman province, Balkhab in Saripul province and Khas Urozgan in Urozgan province where there are female students but could not be enrolled in Girls’ scholarship program as the fund could not be transferred to these provinces due to the insecurity. Lack of security also slows down the transfer of scholarship amount to districts and also makes monitoring challenging. Long process of transferring money from the MoE to Provinces is also an obstacle to the programme. Gender based challenges as high turnover of women staff at field level; unavailability of professional women for management positions; cultural and contextual scenarios and restriction on movement of women without Mahram is obstructing women to adhere and sustain their jobs are all highlighted in the reports.