2020 Capacity Building Program for the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to Formulate the National Strategy & National Spatial Plan (NSSP)

》​ Introduction​​​​​​​

From September 2 to 23, GDPC at KRIHS hosted the first Capacity-Building Program for the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to Formulate the National Spatial Strategy & National Spatial Plan (NSSP). This training program targeted high- and mid-level officials of the central governments such as the Ministry of Urban Development and Land (MUDL) and the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG) that establish territorial development policies and implement national-level spatial planning based on the knowledge obtained from this training program.

Because of the COVID-19 global pandemic, the training program was changed from face-to-face training to virtual training (mixture of recorded lectures and real-time discussion session through video). The lectures were prepared as prerecorded video lectures (PPT with the lecturer’s voice) along with various reference documents. The participants were given one week per part (Part 1: NSSP General, Part 2: NSSP Sectoral) to study the recorded lectures and provide questions and comments. The participants’ progress was tracked through a Google survey every day. While having four real-time discussion sessions, KRIHS aimed to explore the broad questions and challenges of territorial development with the Afghan participants, KRIHS research fellows, and lecturers.

This training program is considered to be a meaningful opportunity for Afghan participants to learn and understand Korea’s successful experience and expertise on economic development and national territorial planning. The training program is expected to employ a participatory and customized approach to identify the best solutions for Afghanistan.