Community Cohesion Initiative Final Report

The country was preparing for presidential elections in 2014 and parliamentary elections in 2015, setting the stage for potential insecurity and volatility. Afghanistan's per capita GDP is one of the lowest in the world, and reductions in U.S. military and aid spending in correlation with the troop drawdown are expected to significantly reduce GDP. Unemployment is pervasive, especially among youth, and natural disasters threaten food security and take a significant toll on human life. Communities in Afghanistan often lack faith in their local governing structures to address pressing needs, perceiving local leaders as corrupt and self-serving. The Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) has been characterized by internal divisions, lack of capacity, and corruption, with state institutions at the national and local level being fragile and unable to deliver good governance or basic services to the majority of the population. This has led to feelings of disaffection and hopelessness among youth, who lack opportunities for licit employment and income generation, making them vulnerable to insurgent exploitation. The Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) through the Afghanistan Community Cohesion Initiative (CCI) sought to increase resilience in areas vulnerable to insurgent exploitation in support of three objectives: strengthening community capacities to promote a peaceful transition, supporting peaceful electoral processes and outcomes, and countering violent threats to a peaceful transition. CCI was implemented from March 1, 2012, through February 29, 2015, by Creative Associates International, Inc. (Creative) with a broad range of activities in the east, south, and southwest, as well as national-level activities implemented from Kabul. CCI's approach focused on strengthening ties between local actors, customary governance structures, and GIRoA, as well as increasing cohesion among and between communities. Initially, the program primarily focused on small-scale infrastructure activities, such as school rehabilitation, along with skills-building and vocational activities, like carpentry and tailoring training. However, Creative-CCI's experience during initial implementation demonstrated that a bottom-up approach yielded more successful activity outcomes than a top-down approach. Project shuras were formed to cooperatively partner and engage through formal CCI project maintenance agreements, overseeing ownership obligations, monitoring timelines, and encouraging grassroots support. In response to the challenges faced during initial implementation, Creative-CCI and OTI revised the national objectives and developed a more clearly defined set of intermediate objectives in mid-2013. The revised objectives aimed to strengthen community capacities to promote a peaceful transition, support peaceful electoral processes and outcomes, and counter violent threats to a peaceful transition. The revised objectives included specific aims such as demonstrating the value of inclusion, peaceful co-existence, and collaboration between different communities or groups, supporting the legitimacy of local government and community leaders, and building community capacity to engage in civic advocacy in pursuit of greater transparency and accountability.