Housing reconstruction in Afghanistan: experience and risks for Ukraine

In response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan to bring terrorists to justice, including Osama bin Laden, who had been given a safe haven by the Taliban. As a result of the war, 55% of Afghanistan’s households needed to be repaired or rebuilt, and about 11 million people needed housing assistance. 

Despite the fact that the war in Ukraine and Afghanistan seem to be very different from each other, they can be compared from a statistical point of view. This will allow us to see much more similarities in terms of reconstruction and costs than it seems at first.

How did Afghanistan provide housing for IDPs and refugees?

After the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001, international partners launched a large-scale return programme for refugees and internally displaced persons. In addition to more than half a million migrants from Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia, over 150,000 IDPs were able to return to their villages.

As of mid-2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had allocated $23.5 million to purchase construction materials to rebuild refugees’ and IDPs’ homes. This support allowed returning Afghans to receive plastic tents, but in a devastated country, a huge number of people needed to rebuild their homes, including more than half a million returning citizens.

The UN Refugee Agency also provided construction materials for Afghan refugees who were registered in the housing programme, but they had to rebuild their homes on their own.

As of October 2002, more than 1.7 million refugees and over 200,000 IDPs had managed to return home thanks to the UNHCR programme and the Afghan government. At the same time, about 60 per cent of Afghans continued to live in tents, temporary shelters or abandoned houses for a long time.

Housing reconstruction policies

Since the national authorities were unable to carry out the reconstruction process on their own, this issue was largely addressed by international partners.

The Government of Afghanistan also took certain steps to address the housing shortage, including 

• provision of new land plots;

• strengthening the protection of land ownership rights by documenting them; 

• support for housing construction and improvement of living conditions;

• facilitating the financing of affordable housing;

• introducing a housing subsidy programme for low- and middle-income households. 

The Government’s IDP policy provided a framework for preventing displacement and achieving local integration and sustainable solutions for IDPs. State housing programmes were also approved: 

• National Housing Programme – envisaged the construction of 150,000 housing units in different parts of the country.

• The Government/Municipal Housing Programme – about 450,000 spaces were distributed on the condition that the beneficiaries would build their own homes on them. Unfortunately, houses were built on only 15% of the spaces, and the rest were either sold or never used.

In addition, 13 housing projects were implemented in Kabul between 2001 and 2012 under the leadership of the Government, with donors planning to build 19,747 apartments, but only 4,117 of them were completed. 

The apartments built by the government were distributed mainly to civil servants and other privileged individuals. The recipients were obliged to pay the cost of the housing with a 15-year mortgage, but the rates were below market rates.

Despite the launch of the above programmes, experts note that the Government was unable to meet the demand for housing and did not have the financial capacity to provide subsidised housing to low-income groups on a large scale.

What hindered the effective reconstruction of Afghanistan’s housing stock?

In general, experts identify the following key shortcomings of Afghanistan’s housing policy:

• Corruption. An assessment conducted by the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee in 2013 found that the process of land allocation by the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation was blocked by institutional corruption – bribery, forgery, nepotism, and embezzlement – which hindered the programme’s implementation;

• Lack of an effective regulatory framework. Experts also noted that the lack of effective legislation was a key factor contributing to the growing housing shortage in Afghanistan. This is evidenced by the fact that the country had no binding building codes or regulations that would integrate the principles of sustainable architecture. The construction of buildings, roads, motorways and bridges was generally carried out in accordance with foreign norms and standards;

The current level of public and private housing supply is very low compared to needs and effective demand.

Results of reconstruction

The United States spent approximately $145 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2021. An additional $12.6 billion has been contributed to the trust fund by international donor partners.

As of September 2021, the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund has reconstructed more than 45,000 homes since the start of the programme. However, this did not achieve large-scale qualitative changes – the reconstruction of housing was aimed at solving the urgent problem of providing housing conditions for the population affected by the war and was not aimed at developing and modernising the country. 

In general, housing conditions in Afghanistan are very poor, which is not surprising given the decades of war and internal conflict the country has experienced. As of the end of 2022, around 2 million IDPs continue to live in more than 1,000 large, sprawling informal settlements in nearly 30 provinces of Afghanistan, usually in dire conditions and often dependent on humanitarian aid to supplement their meagre earnings.

So what does this have to do with reconstruction in Ukraine?

Well, the experience of Afghanistan is not relevant to Ukraine. The reconstruction of the country was largely led by international partners, not the domestic authorities. However, one of the biggest challenges to reconstruction in Ukraine could be corruption, as it happened in Afghanistan.

For the effective implementation of anti-corruption policies, reforms in the law enforcement and judicial systems need to be completed. In addition, strategic documents related to anti-corruption policy, both in general and at the local level, need to be revised to take into account the new risks associated with the recovery process.

In addition, it is important to attract financial resources not only to rebuild destroyed facilities, but also to launch new projects, build new facilities, and invest in the future, implementing the principle of “rebuilding better than before.” 

Obviously, the international partners who will finance the reconstruction will exercise their own oversight over the use of funds and demand transparency and accountability from the Ukrainian side. Therefore, Ukraine must ensure an adequate level of control and monitoring of donor funding expenditures, as without external support, the country will not be able to finance its reconstruction needs on its own.  

This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of NGO «Institute of Analytics and Advocacy» and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.