The Local Governance Project – Afghanistan (LoGo) started in October 2015 and is funded by European commission and Switzerland to make the state effective in improving socio economics development and good governance. The project provides support to the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG), 13 Provincial Governors Offices (PGOs) and Provincial Council (PCs), 22 provincial and districts Municipalities and civil society organizations in 17 provinces to be more responsive to external and internal stakeholders on delivery of results. The project aims at improving service delivery by enhancing accountability and transparency of the local governments to the women and men of Afghanistan, and building the capacity of the local governments to plan, budget and monitor service delivery effectively. The ultimate goal is to increase the legitimacy of the government and the trust between the state and society.

In the second quarter, LoGo continued with the baseline study and focused on LoGo recruitment and implementation of program activities at IDLG in center, provinces and municipalities.

In Q2, with the LoGo technical and financial support, the Bamyan and Daikundi PGO initiated the establishment of a citizen service center, which will work as a public grievance management system. Five municipalities (Bamyan, Nili, Kunduz, Guzara and Injil) generated financial profiles and drafted Revenue Enhancement Action Plans (REAP) for 2 district municipalities (Guzara and Injil) during the second quarter. In addition, 15 School-Municipal Committees (SMC) were trained including 6 newly established SMCs in Guzara and Injil district municipalities for advocacy and youth engagement in municipal governance.

During this period, a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) was developed to manage grants to CSOs for networking, capacity building and monitoring of local service delivery.

With support from LoGo, IDLG organized a national conference for the spokespersons of the provincial governors’ offices to improve coordination, coherence and consistency in delivering messages on developments in socioeconomic, security, governance and human rights at national and subnational level. As a result, the spokespersons’ had a better understanding of government priorities.

LoGo also supported CIDD to develop Capacity Need Assessment guidelines, one-year capacity development plan and initiated a 5- year capacity development strategy (40% completed in this quarter) mainly focusing on organizational development with intervention of partners and using south to south cooperation modality.

LoGo would like to thank all donors for their continued support. On-going donor support is critical to the work of LoGo and UNDP, its provincial and municipal partners, and to IDLG, as we work towards more effective, democratic and sustainable subnational governance in Afghanistan.