Until recently, most of the District Offices in Kabul Municipality were either dilapidated or non-existent. Now, thanks to support provided by UN-HABITAT, 11 of the 17 districts in the city have an office. Mayor Ghulam Sakhi Noorzad inaugurated the newest of these offices – in District 17 – on 17 August 2004. Construction of another office in District 16 is expected to be completed later this month. Twenty years of war and chronic under-investment have had a severe impact on Afghanistan 's urban housing stock and physical infrastructure. A 2002 assessment of the physical impact of the war on the city's housing and infrastructure indicates that a quarter of all housing units in the country were seriously damaged or destroyed during the war and half of the country's population lived in unplanned areas with little access to safe piped water or proper sanitation. Much of the urban infrastructure, including government and municipal buildings, were either in a state of disrepair or were damaged. As part of its reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan , UN-HABITAT has been involved in restoring basic urban infrastructure that will assist the new government to carry out its responsibilities and help residents of the city to obtain urban services. One of the priorities of UN-HABITAT is to work with the government of Afghanistan to prepare and implement a national urban development programme, focusing on housing, services and employment. The construction and rehabilitation of District Offices in the Municipality of Kabul will contribute to ensuring that the city's administrative infrastructure is in place, which will enable the Municipality to improve the quality of urban services available to the residents of the war-torn city. |
