Developing a National Urban Policy in Afghanistan: Experiences and Lessons Learned

Abstract

In 2014, the Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA) identified urban development as a key pillar of its ‘Realising Self Reliance’ decade (2015-2024). Sustainable urbanisation was subsequently established as a National Priority Programme, which is a precursor to a National Urban Policy (NUP), an umbrella policy framework for all sectoral policies that operate in the urban sphere. The Urban National Priority Program (UNPP) sets an ambitious vision for 2016-2025 and coordinates actions across a range of institutions and territorial space. This chapter explores the experience of developing the UNPP between 2014 and 2017. The chapter shows the significant re-orientation of Afghanistan’s policy away from seeing urbanisation as a negative phenomenon-something to be stopped, or even reversed but towards perceiving urbanisation as a driver of development, peace and prosperity. This chapter, therefore, provides an empirical case study of how one of the poorest and most fragile countries prioritised urbanisation as a driver of national development in line with Sustainable Development Goal 11 and the New Urban Agenda. This chapter presents a synopsis of the UNPP and provides seven lessons learned that may assist to steer NUPs in countries with similar development challenges of fragility, protracted conflict and rapid urbanisation.