Background and Objectives:
UN-HABITAT and the Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) have agreed to collaborate on the implementation of the Literacy and Community Empowerment Programme (LCEP) designed by UN-HABITAT.
The Literacy and Community Empowerment Programme builds on the management and programmatic success of the ongoing National Solidarity Programme (NSP), designed and implemented by UN-HABITAT in selected provinces. The Literacy and Community Empowerment Programme has four streams of activities: community governance, community saving and investments, micro-enterprise initiatives, and integrated literacy.
These components are carried out in 200 communities in 10 districts in five provinces (Parwan, Bamyan, Herat, Farah and Kandahar). As the National Solidarity Programme is governance and gender-intensive, the Literacy and Community Empowerment Programme will help consolidate the main objectives of the National Solidarity Programme: empowered community institutions that are inclusive, consultative and result-oriented.
Activities:
The main activities include:
Promoting local governance and literacy components.
Promoting micro-enterprise components.
Establishing savings and credit Self Help Groups (SHGs) and creating village-level governing bodies to implement community savings and investment activities.
Organising national-level workshop to share experiences.
Results:
Two hundred and sixty five (142 male and 123 female), Community Development Councils (CDCs) reviewed their Community Development Plan (CDP) and 312 (166 male and 146 female) CDCs published newsletters.
Conducted 376 (229 male and 147 female) social audits and established 373 (189 male and 184 female) youth committees.
901 (474 male and 427 female) self-help groups established at the cluster level, and 181 (91 male and 90 female) governing bodies and internal control committees established at the village level.
Self Help Groups reached 11,223 (6,035 male and 5,188 female) people.
Collected savings amounting to US$73,000 and total loan disbursed of US$22,500.
169 (87 male and 82 female), Training of Trainers conducted on Business Development Services (BDS) and 400 entrepreneurs and community banks’ savers were trained.
