Afghanistan: Improved Roads Unlocks Access to Services and Opportunities

DAMAN DISTRICT, Kandahar Province – Like every other weekend, Abdul Rahman kick-starts his motorcycle for the two-hour journey back home. A cleric in Hakim Jan village in Daman district, 70 kilometers away from Kandahar’s provincial center, Abdul Rahman is riding home to Kandahar city.

In 2013, when Abdul Rahman, 35, first started working in Hakim Jan village, the road connecting the village to Kandahar, the Spin-Boldak main road, was not paved. Rocky terrain and the long commute time meant that he could visit his family only once a month. “At that time, the road was too muddy and there was water-logging in many parts of the road,” he says. “It was normal to see a car stranded and muddied along the road.”

The challenging road conditions delayed access to basic essential services, such as health centers, especially in cases of emergency like childbirth. “Cars used to break down often and commuting made life hard for people here,” says Abdul Rahman.

However, the situation has changed significantly now that the Afghanistan Rural Access Project (ARAP) has asphalted the road between the village and the city. “When the road was paved, I bought a motorcycle to get home easily,” Abdul Rahman says.

No Wastage of Farm Produce

Spin-Boldak road benefits and connects over 20,000 people to markets and other essential facilities in Kandahar city. The main sources of income for villagers in Daman district are agriculture and horticulture. Most of the villagers own and manage pomegranate orchards and cultivate melons, two products that need smooth transportation to ensure the best prices in the market.

Being able to transport their produce using a properly paved road has meant that farmers arrive at markets quickly with produce in good condition. “In the past, we had a lot of wastage when we were transporting pomegranates and melons. Luckily, we do not have that wastage now,” says farmer Haji.

The asphalted road is 4 kilometers (km) long and 7 meters wide, with Kandahar-Spin Boldak main road on one end and the Afghanistan National Agriculture University, near Hakim Jan village, on the other. The project took a year and was completed by August 2016.

“When the road was not paved, I used to come from Kandahar-Spin Boldak main road to the Agriculture University in 20 minutes, with challenges like mud and bumps,” says Khan, of the university. “The same commute takes me five minutes now.”

ARAP is a follow-on project of the National Emergency Rural Access Program (NERAP). It is supported by the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank Group’s fund for the poorest countries, and the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF). ARAP aims to benefit rural communities across Afghanistan by improving access to basic services and facilities through all-weather roads.