8
almost come to a halt, approximately 150,000 people still pour into Herat during the
winter from the two neighboring countries in order to find shelter, food and employment.
Relative to other Afghan cities the physical infrastructure is extremely good, with
asphalted roads and increasingly reliable electricity from Iran and Turkmenistan. The
public transportation system is working well with donations from the Indian Government
and Iran. Foreign investment into communication, transport and property is remarkable,
and there are now more than 25 industrial plants in the greater urban area mainly
producing cement and textiles. The mayor, a visionary man and close ally of governor
Ismail Khan, has a clear focus on grand projects in line with his long-term vision of Herat
as “the Dubai of Afghanistan,” which he hopes to achieve through greater investment in
hotels and health clinics. The municipal bureaucracy is functioning quite well; annual
budgeting and resource management are conducted with the help of computer systems.
For a city of 800,000, roughly the same size of Mazar, the number of municipal staff—
about 700 plus 400 day laborers—is impressive, made possible by the fact that the city
does not submit any resources to the center.
Despite major achievements with regard to service provision, services such as
education and health and water are not yet adequate to cope with present growth. The
same is holds true for housing, in particular in the outskirts but also in the center where
housing prices have risen substantially over the last two years.
16
With the help of donors
and the provincial government, the municipality has purchased a dozen well-maintained
second-hand vehicles for solid waste collection from Germany; however, to this point at
least three districts are still under-serviced. For instance, an unemployed male respondent
in district six explained:
“Waste is piling up and the streets are dirty, but the municipality does not do any
work in this area; the center is so beautiful but they don’t pay attention to district
six where the poor live! We also have nothing to do with the shura; they don’t
listen to us. There is a wakil but we don’t have any communication with him
because he does not work.”
Another area of concern underlined by several respondents was severely
restrained freedom of expression. The municipality has rehabilitated parks in an attempt
to create public spaces and emphasizes a policy of including and protecting women in
public life and discourse, yet both women’s rights groups and human rights activists
reported abuses and intimidations backed by local authorities. Indeed, the link between
the local government bureaucracy and the provincial authority is tight. The governor is
pumping money into the city but also retains control over policies and appointments. As
one international aid worker put it:
“There is a difference between Herat and other provinces. Here they want a
separate system from Kabul and they do not accept decisions from Kabul. For
development and improvement, governance is very important but accountability
does not work here. It is the political system rather than social or developmental
issues that is the problem here.”
16
Cf. SchĂĽtte (2004), Stigter (2004).
Convention