Jan. 13, 2007: #3 CIDA - ARTF

Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF)

The multilateral Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) was set up in May ... The ARTF is administered by the World Bank under the supervision of a ...

www.worldbank.org/artf

The multilateral Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) was set up in May 2002 to provide support to Afghanistan in two areas. First, it will provide for the recurrent costs of the government, such as the salaries of teachers, health workers, civilian staff in ministries and provinces, operations, and maintenance expenditures; and bulk purchases of essential goods for the government. Second, it would support investment projects, capacity building, feasibility studies, technical assistance, and the return of expatriate Afghans.

The ARTF is administered by the World Bank under the supervision of a Management Committee comprising the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the World Bank. A monitoring agent has been recruited to assist in ensuring proper fiduciary management. [....]

This is just chock-full of interesting information on ARTF and on the disbursements, for example:

Microfinance Project
ARTF Financing Amount: US$74.3 million

aims to assist the government in developing a sustainable microfinance sector that will provide flexible, convenient, and affordable financial services to poor people. The goal is to build an integrated financial sector and remove the barriers that separate the microfinance community from the broader mainstream financial system. In just over two years of operations, the project has provided more than US$50 million in funds, with US$26 million as loan portfolio outstanding and is now working with 13 microfinance institutions (MFIs). Currently, the project supports a network of over 128 branches, with more than 185,000 loan and savings clients in 19 provinces and 138 districts. Seventy-four percent of the clients are women, and the repayment rate is approximately 99%. The sector now employs over 1,500 Afghans (two-thirds are women) and has trained over 400 Afghans, including 25 managers in microfinance. [....]

The above sounds very akin to what was mentioned in the CIDA evidence presented to the Senate Committee from two officials from the Canadian International Development Agency: Hau Sing Tse, Vice-President of the Asia Branch, and Phillip Baker, Director of the Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka Division.


Other programs:

Afghan Civil Service Capacity Building Program
ARTF Financing Amount: US$13 million

The first component—Afghan Expatriates Program (US$10 million)—will increase the contribution of professional Afghans living abroad in the reconstruction of Afghanistan by enhancing public sector policy and institutional capacity. This component also aims to close the skills gap in information technology, engineering, and teaching with well-trained overseas Afghans, by providing local Afghans with opportunities for on-the-job training to enhance their technical skills. Since September 2004, around 76 Afghan Experts have been placed in government ministries and agencies.

The second component—Lateral Entry Program (US$3 million)—includes a pilot phase, which aims to place 100 lateral entrants from NGOs and international organizations in middle- and senior-level line positions in government ministries and agencies [....]

A few other programs:

Recurrent and Capital Costs Window
ARTF Financing Amount: US$1,048 million [over a billion dollars]
Project Objective: The ARTF recurrent window finances salaries and wages of about 220,000 non-uniformed civil servants

Education Quality Improvement Project (EQUIP

The Rehabilitation of Telecommunications Systems Project

For more information on the ARTF, please contact Mr. David Freese , in the World Bank Office in Kabul, Afghanistan
E-mail: dfreese@ worldbank.org [remove spaces]


ARTF ExS - Afghanistan for Afghans -- ARTF Expatriates Services Program. ... ARTF ExS documents are viewable only in Adobe Acrobat Reader. For comments and suggestions, please email us at ... -- or here

www.artfexpat.gov.af/

This leads to International Organization for Migration

This website appears to be in Afghanistan but when I checked, it led to iom.org / iom.net / iom.int eventually -- ph = Philippines in the following:

"No A records exist for artfexpat.gov.af. [Neg TTL=43200 seconds] Details: mnllindns.iom.org.ph. (an authoritative nameserver for artfexpat.gov.af.) says that there are no A records for artfexpat.gov.af. The E-mail address in charge of the artfexpat.gov.af. zone is: dnsmaster@iom.int."

iom.int leads to the International Organization for Migration.