Extensive New York Times article discussing the merits of small grants and projects having bigger impact versus the billions spent through governments. Mentions the work of Aga Khan Development Network. With Multimedia Slide show.
–excerpt– Jurm presented many obstacles, and it took a development group with determined local employees to jump-start the work here.
One basic problem was literacy, said Ghulam Dekan, a local worker with the Aga Khan Development Network, the nonprofit group that supports the councils here.
Unlike the situation in Iraq, which has a literacy rate of more than 70 percent, fewer than a third of Afghans can read, making the work of the councils painfully slow. Villagers were suspicious of projects, believing that the people in the groups that introduced them were Christian missionaries.
“They didn’t understand the importance of a road,” Mr. Dekan said.
Most projects, no matter how simple, took five years. Years of war had smashed Afghan society into rancorous bits, making it difficult to resist efforts by warlords to muscle in on projects.
“They said, ‘For God’s sake, we can’t do this, we don’t have the capability,’ ” Mr. Dekan said. “We taught them to have confidence.”
via An Afghan Development Model – Small Is Better – NYTimes.com.
Link to Multimedia slideshow
Afghan Enclave Seen as Model – Print PDF
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