16.02.11
With many poor returnees settling in Kabul, there is a growing need for securing aid to vulnerable people in new urban settlements. Many families have no other choice than to set up tents when they arrive in the Afghan capital, but only limited assistance is available for the vulnerable settlements.
Following the collapse of the Taliban regime, and the return of Afghans from Pakistan and Iran, millions have settled in Kabul, and many of them for economic reasons. In addition, thousands of families are still forced to leave their places of origin within the borders of Afghanistan, largely due to insecurity, poverty, and droughts. The vast majority tend to relocate to major cities such as Kabul and Herat.
With funds from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Danish Refugee Council in collaboration with the Afghan organisation Serve Health Relief and Development Organisation, SHRDO, is now launching a programme targeting informal settlements in Kabul. Initially, relief items as fire wood and stoves are to be distributed, and later different types of self-reliance and income generating measures will be pursued.
- Many poor urban households have no access to food, water, medical aid, or jobs, and are forced to live on inhuman and often health-threatening conditions. Among the most vulnerable individuals are elderly people and female-headed households who have difficulties in generating income. To reach out to them too and to better support the communities living in tent settlements in Kabul, we want to mobilize them to ensure their participation and acceptance of the new interventions, says Rikke Johannessen, programme coordinator with the Danish Refugee Council.
The pace of growth of Afghanistan’s major cities has been exceeding the planning and management capabilities of the already overwhelmed central government and of under-resourced municipalities. This has made them unable to effectively work on reducing the levels of urban poverty and vulnerability.
While lacking a self-reliance strategy, the humanitarian community has failed to deliver efficient reintegration assistance to vulnerable communities in Afghanistan. Due to upward-spiralling rents in Kabul, many returnees are forced to put up tents in various locations. At the beginning of 2011, 32 informal settlements were identified in the capital Kabul with over 15,000 individual dwellers, and the number could well be much higher.