OVERVIEW

ISLA aims to improve provincial governance in the areas of fiscal and development planning, representation of citizens, and enhanced delivery of public services.

ISLA strengthens subnational systems of planning, operations, communication, representation, and citizen engagement. Improvements in these areas, along with the passage of clear, legal sub-national governance frameworks by the Government of Afghanistan, will improve service delivery and develop central plans and budgets that represent provincial interests. This will lead to services that more closely respond to all citizens’ needs in health, education, security, justice, and urban services.

ACTIVITIES

• Technical assistance to provincial governments to strategically plan and coordinate activities with the central government in order to strengthen linkages between the central and provincial levels for planning, budgeting, and service delivery.
• Capacity-building focused on institutionalizing policies and administrative processes of provincial entities and the Independent Directorate of Local Governance.
• Training and technical assistance to improve the ability of provincial actors to represent citizen interests in planning and service delivery, and advocate to their central level counterparts for the inclusion of provincial priorities in national plans and budgets.
• Assistance to improve the ability of provincial authorities to engage citizens and aggregate citizen priorities and needs.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Trained more than 4,200 sub-national government officials in advocacy, communications, budgeting, functional analysis, human resources management, provincial development planning, and public financial management.
• Supported 16 provincial governor offices in conducting 47 town hall meetings on provincial development plans, where communities prioritized development projects. The 5,719 participants in these town halls included community representatives, provincial council members, provincial line ministry directorates and civil society.
• Held 21 women forums and 24 youth forums, where more than 2,000 people discussed the importance of women and youth participation in public decision making.
• Financed 141 advocacy initiatives for projects identified in provincial development plans. The initiatives include establishment of Provincial Advocacy Committees (PAC), development of advocacy plans, and community mobilization and PAC meetings with sub-national entities to advocate for development projects.
• Provided 7,515 days of technical assistance in financial management to sub-national counterparts in 16 provinces.
• Supported the development and review of 69 public policies such as Long-term Provincial Communication Plans, Annual Public Information Plans, Operation and Management Plans for sub-national counterparts, and the Provincial Development Planning Guideline.
• Provided technical assistance to 180 provincial directorates in 16 provinces to prepare their operating and development budgets in the newly-required format that improves public financial management at the provincial level.
• Supported the application of an organizational capacity assessment in 32 sub-national entities across 16 target provinces. These assessments yielded data on capacity, systems, communications, and coordination of subnational governance activities at the national and provincial level.