Critical Administrative Constraints to Service Delivery : Improving Public Services in Afghanistan's Transformational Decade

Abstract

Since 2001, the Afghan population's
 access to basic services has greatly improved in nearly all
 sectors. School enrolment has increased sharply, with over
 eight million children currently enrolled in school, of
 which 39 percent are girls. Current strategies for improving
 sub-national service delivery focus on delegating greater
 authority to provincial and district administrations. This
 report aims to identify administrative constraints in three
 key sectors of public service delivery, education, health
 and agricultural extension services. The analysis follows
 the service delivery chain, from central to provincial,
 through district to community level, and is particularly
 concerned to examine service delivery in these three sectors
 through the window of sub-national governance and its
 relations to the service delivery mandates of line
 ministries. The study provides the Government of Afghanistan
 with recommendations on how to alleviate critical
 constraints to service delivery at sub-national levels on a
 sustainable basis, in the context of an expected restrained
 fiscal future. The report's main findings are based on
 qualitative research. The key findings are based on existing
 literature and reports as well as field visits to 5
 provinces and 10 districts and qualitative analyses of over
 171 key-informant interviews on different levels of service
 delivery administration, 68 in-depth interviews with
 community leaders, and a community household survey in 20
 communities spread over 5 provinces and 55 service
 facilities (for example, schools and clinics) were assessed.
 The report is split into six sections: section one gives
 executive summary; section two provides a brief introduction
 to the study objectives and clarifies some key definitions;
 section three outlines the methods used to perform the
 analysis; sections four, five, and six provide in-depth
 discussions of education, health, and agriculture extension
 respectively; and section seven provides recommendations and
 concludes. The over-arching governance structures and
 further methodological details are given in appendix one.
 All references and research tools are presented in annexes.