Secretary-General's latest report

The UN Secretary-General's quarterly report to the Security Council released on 5 March 2013 provides an update of UNAMA's activities since 6 December 2012, listed below. For a full copy of the report, click here. 

V. Governance and rule of law

39. On 8 January, the appointment of 60 district governors and 17 deputy provincial governors was announced. More than half of the 364 district governors and 32 of 34 deputy provincial governors have undergone selection through a merit-based recruitment process. The latest round of appointments included the country’s first female district governor, Sayara Shakeeb Sadat, in Faizabad district, Jawzjan Province.

40. On 11 December, the Subnational Governance Coordination Forum discussed the implementation of the local governance national priority programme. Co-chaired by the Independent Directorate of Local Governance and UNAMA, with the ministries of finance, economy, urban planning, rural rehabilitation and development and donors in attendance, the Forum discussed issues such as probable gaps in assistance owing to the closure of provincial reconstruction teams. The Directorate unveiled a resource tool to display information on the priority programme’s deliverables, resources and capacity requirements, currently being fine-tuned and populated with data. Of the two national priority programmes still to be finalized, a new draft programme on law and justice for all was distributed on 9 January, while the programme on transparency and accountability is proving more problematic, given that donors have concerns about progress in tackling corruption. Four actions were agreed upon for implementation before endorsement: asset verification of senior officials; laws passed on auditing; laws passed on access to public information; and simplification of construction permits.

41. On 7 February, the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption, with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), released a survey on recent patterns and trends in relation to corruption in Afghanistan. Total bribes paid to public officials in 2012 were estimated at $3.9 billion, an increase of 40 per cent in real terms since the previous survey in 2009. Of 6,700 Afghans surveyed (of whom 42 per cent were women), half had paid a bribe to public officials.

42. On 5 February, the head of the Central Prison Directorate signed 99 operational prison directives aimed at guaranteeing the sound administration and management of prisons. On 20 and 21 February, the Women’s Caucus of the Criminal Law Reform Working Group held a two-day workshop, supported by UN-Women and UNAMA, focusing on women’s issues in Penal Code reform and increasing female representation within the Working Group. Under the auspices of the Prison Working Group, which UNAMA helps to support, the ministries of the interior and public health developed a memorandum of understanding transferring responsibility for health delivery in prisons to the latter so as to better ensure the required level of expertise in the delivery of health care to inmates.