Community Development Councils
Bringing democracy and co-operation to villages 
Afghanaid believes that inclusive and democratic institutions are fundamental to successful delivery and sustainabilityof the development interventions aiming to reduce poverty and vulnerability.
Afghanaid facilitates mobilisation, formation and capacitydevelopment of inclusive, accountable and responsive grassroots institutions inorder to increase equal participation and ownership in development planningand delivery, particularly of the more vulnerable groups such as women andyouth.
In cooperation with the Afghan Government's National Solidarity Programme Afghanaid helps set up Community Development Councils (CDCs) in villages which pool resources, identify priorities and work together to achieve their goals. Afghanaid staff help to set up elections and provide training on councillors’ responsibilities and the need for female representation.
The councils also work collectively in clusters to design, propose and run projects for all the villages.
Communities discuss their needs and Afghanaid provides training in project management and lobbying. Afghanaid staff also help to develop proposals and connect CDCs to donors.
Afghanaid has set up 1,194 CDCs and 97 clusters. The NSP and CDC is an on going project and 1,676,736 people from different ethnic groups have benefited from this project so far.
In Samangan’s Firoz area, home to some 9,000 people, ethnic groups have put mistrust behind them to work together.Ethnic Uzbek, Pashtun and Tajik communities live adjacent to one another and tribal suspicions and political differences have often resulted in violence.
‘We were scared to pass other villages and there were often stabbings,’ said Hamidullah, a member of Dara village’s CDC. ‘Now we are closer than blood brothers,’ he added.
In this case, the cluster was an intermediary and invited groups of elders from each village to negotiate peace and these incidents stopped.
The cluster has also set up projects such as tailoring and embroidery classes for women and agricultural training.