30 Nov Afghanistan National Development Strategy
“The ANDS is an ambitious document which recognizes many of the challenges involved in realising its vision of what Afghanistan can become. The agenda must now shift to focus on how to deliver this vision…”
In 2008, the Government of Afghanistan released its vision for poverty reduction in the form of the Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS), attracting over $20 billion in aid pledges from international donors earmarked for its implementation. Although coordinated by the Afghan government, the development of ANDS was in many ways highly skewed towards meeting the goals and deadlines of international donors, due in part to its potential to be an internationally-approved Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).
While acknowledging its strengths, AREU’s analysis of the ANDS focuses on its significant inherent shortcomings. The ANDS delivers a framework which is neither pro-poor nor strategic due to its failure to focus on the causes of poverty, lack of sequencing and detailed planning for desired outcomes, and emphasis on technical factors over political and social considerations. In a special discussion paper, AREU’s research team examines these issues in detail and explores how they might be overcome during the strategy’s implementation, monitoring and evaluation processes.
Further analysis of the creation of the ANDS is also available through the Policy Process research project.