Peace Building in Afghanistan Through Settlement Regularization

Afghanistan is a country suffering from decades of conflict, but it is also a country in which its 29 million inhabitants are trying to make a living. Urban areas are expanding rapidly (5.4% per year, much higher than the national population growth of 3.2 %) and informal settlements are inhabited by approximately 70% of its population. Inhabitants of urban informal settlements are rural-urban migrants, returnees, and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), including demobilized fighters but also urban newcomers with low incomes and in need of a place to live. These Informal areas are also the hiding places for insurgents and if Afghanistan and the International Community want to contribute to Peace Building those informal settlements are the key to achieving peace and development.

Community development through sharing resources, resolving conflicts, and working together are part of the traditional culture in Afghanistan. In the absence of institutionalised governance systems before 2002 UN-HABITAT developed an approach based on this community spirit of the people. The approach called People’s Process is based on the belief that people have enormous potential and that this capacity can be used to develop and strengthen communities in the field of vocational training, and conflict resolution but also for settlement upgrading.

Also Read: Power, Inequality, and Local Land Conflict in Afghanistan: A Study of Kabul’s Peri-Urban Areas