York experts lead Cabinet discussions in Kabul

Posted on Tuesday 10 December 2002

Dr Mark Evans, Head of the Department of Politics and Dr Sultan Barakat, Director of the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit, at York, are in Kabul to provide guidance to the Afghan government as they strive to establish an effective civil service.

Their trip is part of the Afghan Assistance Coordination Authority training programme for senior members of the public administration. Civil servants in Afghanistan are preparing the national budget and working to restore and introduce new public services. The Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit have led many training programmes for public servants in Afghanistan, working with public servants in central, provincial and district level offices. They will spend the next two weeks working with ministers and the public administration.

The York team are joined by colleagues from the International Training Programme for Conflict Management at the University of Pisa, Italy. Together they will lead Cabinet discussions on three key issues:

• What can the Afghan public service learn from developments elsewhere?
• What contradictions may emerge from Afghanistan's international obligations and the process of building a modern Islamic state?
• How does the government and public service face the challenge of delivering services and responding to high expectations from the population and, at the same time, implement change, reform and restructuring in public services