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Kama: Tree felling stopped, health services spruced up

Kama: Tree felling stopped, health services spruced up

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6 Dec 2020 - 16:08
Kama: Tree felling stopped, health services spruced up
author avatar
6 Dec 2020 - 16:08

KABUL (Pajhwok): The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in partnership with local Anti-Corruption Committee the Humanitarian Assistance Empowerment Organization (HAEO) has helped put a stop to tree felling besides improving the performance and services of Kama District Hospital in eastern Nangarhar province.

Mata Khel village, located on the riverside in Kama district, is protected by trees and small river walls. Trees were the only strong protection for the village and agriculture lands.

However, these trees were cut by the villagers for their personal use and sold in the market at a dirt-cheap price.

Mata Khel village was under high risk: If there was rain or floodwaters, the river water level increased and destroyed the village and agricultural lands cultivated by poor farmers.

The government, Taliban and community elders tried many times to convince people to avoid felling these trees, but they did not succeed.

The people, who were cutting the trees, complained they were affected as the flood destroyed their homes. But no one had helped them yet, they grumbled. “Therefore, we are compelled to cut these trees and find money for our families.”

The issue was raised by the Anti-Corruption Committee comprised of 48 individuals form different categories, including members of the district development authority (DDA), community development committee (CDC), civil society organisations (CSO), youth, mullah imams (prayer leaders) and influential community elders.

The problem was shared with the people involved in cutting the trees. They were informed of bad effects of tree felling on the community, agriculture and social life of community people.

The people involved in cutting trees were warned indirectly, so as to stop tree cutting. The flood-affected people were introduced to ANDMA and ICRC for assistance in terms of food and NFI.

The issue was continuously taken up with community people and finally addressed. The trees are no longer cut.

The attendance of the District Hospital (DH) and Community Health Centers (CHCs) personnel of Kama district was not based on rules and regulations.

Staffers did not follow office rules, as most of them came late at 10am and left early at 11am. It meant they were present only for one hour for services at their duty station.

This issue was raised by the Volunteer Anti- Corruption Committee with the relevant district authority during face-to-face advocacy meetings and tracked again and again.

It was also shared with the Agency for Assistance and Development of Afghanistan (AADA), which is responsible for service delivery in the health sector in Kama district. AADA also visited the DH and CHCs and even cut salaries of some staffers due to their absence.

This struggle of the advocacy committee finally brought changes to staff behavior and the graph of staff attendance. As a consequence, DH and CHCs staffers are now adhering to rules and regulations, coming to office and leaving on time.

There was another problem in Kama District Hospital — lack of ambulances. But when our Anti-Corruption Committee  visited the Kama District Hospital, it saw a damaged ambulance which needed to be repaired at a low cost.

This problem was shared with the relevant authorities, who promised fixing the damaged ambulance and making it worth using in two or three days. The issue was followed again during an advocacy meeting. Finally, the ambulance has been repaired and now it is ready for use.

UNDP has recently established the Anti-Corruption Committees also known as Humanitarian Assistance Empowerment Organization (HAEO) in Kama districts through its Anti-Corruption, Transparency, Integrity and Openness (ACTION) project -with financial support from the Royal Danish Embassy in Kabul.

On December 9, Anti-Corruption Day is going to be marked internationally. Fighting corruption is a global concern. While corruption impacts every country, evidence shows that it hurts poor people disproportionately.

Corruption hinders efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violation of human rights, distorts markets, erodes quality of life and allows organised crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish. It contributes to instability, poverty and is a dominant factor driving fragile countries towards state failure.

mud

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