The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report
Women's Economic Empowerment National Priority Program (P163267)
Women's Economic Empowerment National Priority Program (P163267)
SOUTH ASIA | Afghanistan | Social Global Practice |
Recipient Executed Activities | Investment Project Financing | FY 2018 | Seq No: 4 | ARCHIVED on 10-Jan-2020 | ISR40107 |
Implementing Agencies: Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Finance
Key Dates
Key Project Dates
Bank Approval Date: 22-Aug-2017 Effectiveness Date: --
Original Closing Date: Revised Closing Date: --
pdoTable
Project Development Objectives
Project Development Objective (from Project Appraisal Document)
The Objective of the PPG to support the GoIRA to establish a National Priority Program on Womenâs Economic Empowerment (WEE-NPP) that
advances women's access to economic assets and opportunities.
Has the Project Development Objective been changed since Board Approval of the Project Objective?
No
Overall Ratings
Name Previous Rating Current Rating
Progress towards achievement of PDO Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Unsatisfactory
Overall Implementation Progress (IP) Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory
Implementation Status and Key Decisions
Implementation Status: The last six months of the WEENPP program have seen the transition of the program from the Ministry of Labor and
Social Affairs (MoLSA) to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) as part of the joint agreement that had been taken by the World Bank and MOF teams
earlier this year. Unfortunately, as part of this transition, several of the key staff in the Program Coordination Office (PCO), including the Program
Director and Deputy Director, moved to other assignments within Government. This loss in staff capacity as well as the transition as a whole, hurt
overall program coordination and activities. However, work in all of the implementing line ministries (LMs) under the program progressed. The WEE-
NPP technical working group and steering committee had been meeting on a regular basis and there are now action plans and targets for the WEE-
NPP that have been agreed upon all but three (out of 14) of the implementing LMs supporting the program. Some summary achievements under
different elements of the program include the following:
Under the Gender Statistics pillar, the National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA) has developed an action plan for undertaking
training on gender statistics across all Government Ministries and has recruited a Gender Statistics Specialist with support from WEENPP
Under the Removing Gender Barriers pillar, numerous laws, regulations and policies have been drafted, reviewed and revised by the
Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) and Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to ensure that these do not create barriers to women’s economic
participation in the country. Summary of these set of laws, regulations, policies and plans includes Elimination of Violence against Women
(EVAW) Law, Courts Act Law, Marriage Registration Law, Women's Property Rights and Inheritance Law, Emergency Assistance Fund
Regulation for Women Victimized by crucial violence, Small Loans Policy for Women, Privacy Policy and Media Policy for Support
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The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report
Women's Economic Empowerment National Priority Program (P163267)
Centers, Civil Servants Pension Rights Regulations, Women's Marketing Management Plan. The Ministry of Haj and Islamic Affairs
(MOHIA) MoHIA has provided 26 articles on women’s dowry, women right to education and employment, women’s economic and
ownership rights, elimination of violence against women, etc as part of this pillar.
In the pillar on Training, Literacy, and Skills, various LMs have completed training and capacity building programs to thousands of women
around the country. Of the 18,073 schools nationwide, 2,693 are assigned to women, which makes up more than 15 per cent of total
schools, and the total number of female teachers reached 81,662 in 1398, making up 36 per cent of all teachers. By conducting 3,961
adult literacy courses in the first six months of the year, 6446 adult women were provided with literacy training programs to learn how to
read and write by the Ministry of Education (MOE). In the higher education sector, Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) has facilitated
provision of328 bachelor, masters and PhDs scholarships to female students and 300 scholarships for disadvantaged female students in
2019. The ministry’s support to female students also include provision of 50 coaster minibus vehicles in various provinces, benefitting
2,000 female students. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) completed a number of midwifery training programs, benefiting
160 midwifery students, as well as community learning nursing programs were conducted to reach 360 nursing students. MoPH also
trained another 840, 88 and 3864 female students in the area of nutrition counsellors, psychosocial counsellors and female health-care
providers respectively in many provinces of Afghanistan.
In the area of access to finance, the Women’s Economic Empowerment Rural Development Project (WEE-RDP) helped establish 2,716
female SGs, with a total of 30,103 women members and approximately AFN 197 million in savings in the first half of 2019. Separately, the
Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA) partners provided a total of 42,559 loans worth around AFN 4 billion is
distributed to women entrepreneurs across Afghanistan over the past year.
With respect to agriculture and extension services, the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock (MAIL) and its donor partners’
agriculture and livestock services have benefited thousands of women in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan through provision of machinery,
kitchen gardens, green houses, poultry farms, extension services, capacity building, and livestock.
Finally, under the Creative Industries pillar, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) has helped establish the “Made by Afghan
Women (MBAW)” logo to promote exports by Afghan women entrepreneurs. MOCI also increased the participation of women in domestic
exhibitions by allocating free exhibition space to women entrepreneurs. The MoCI’s national exhibitions for 100 business women in Bagh
Babur and for 100 women entrepreneurs in Bagh Chehlstoon are examples.
Despite these achievements, an emerging discussion between the GoIRA and the World Bank has also identified key challenges in the design and
implementation of the current Program that hamper its ability to achieve its development objective. These challenges include ongoing staff turnover,
slow progress on key activities, and problems in identifying and resolving bottlenecks across WEE-NPP pillars. More broadly, the program has not
been able to implement the original vision of performance and evidence-based budgeting for women's economic empowerment. The overall rating
for development objectives has therefore been lowered in this ISR.
Key Decisions: In view of the challenges faced by the program and given the shift of the program to MOF, the Government and World Bank teams
have decided to ‘reset’ the program and see how it can be improved moving forward. During a technical mission held in November, the MoF and
WB have been brainstorming on what possible measures can be taken to strengthen the program and possibly launch a “Phase 2” that leads to
greater impact in economically empowering women in Afghanistan. The WEE-NPP is currently supported through a US$5 million grant from the
Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), which is scheduled to close in July 2020. The WB team proposes to use the first half of 2020 to
further the discussions with GoIRA and decide on a potential Phase 2 of the program. In the meantime, it was decided that only core tracking of
WEENPP activities would continue to be undertaken through the PCO and the proposed Innovation Fund component would be put on hold.
Risks
Overall Risk Rating
Risk Category Rating at Approval Previous Rating Current Rating
Overall -- Substantial Substantial
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The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report
Women's Economic Empowerment National Priority Program (P163267)
5. Results
Project Development Objective Indicators
IN00788811
►Hiring of WEE-NPP technical staff (Number, Custom)
Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target
Value 0.00 5.00 5.00 3.00
Date 01-Aug-2017 -- -- 31-Jul-2020
IN00788812
►Establishment of an Inter-Ministerial Working Group for WEE-NPP (Number, Custom)
Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target
Value 0.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Date 01-Aug-2017 -- -- 31-Jul-2020
Intermediate Results Indicators
IN00788745
►Develop a National Results Framework on WEE (Number, Custom)
Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target
Value 0.00 0.00 1.00 1.00
Date 01-Aug-2017 -- 31-Dec-2019 31-Jul-2020
Data on Financial Performance
Disbursements (by loan)
Project Loan/Credit/TF Status Currency Original Revised Cancelled Disbursed Undisbursed % Disbursed
Key Dates (by loan)
Project Loan/Credit/TF Status Approval Date Signing Date Effectiveness Date Orig. Closing Date Rev. Closing Date
Cumulative Disbursements
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The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report
Women's Economic Empowerment National Priority Program (P163267)
Restructuring History
Level 2 Approved on 09-Sep-2019
Related Project(s)
There are no related projects.
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