Monday's incident involving a US military convoy in Kabul
A couple of hours ago this morning, and as most of you know, a serious incident occurred in Kabul involving a US convoy and local people.

We, like most of you, are still in the process of trying to ascertain facts, but the reports we are seeing tend to confirm that the trigger for this was a traffic incident of some kind. We understand there are civilian casualties. At this time, UNAMA reminds everyone that the priority here must be on providing proper care for the injured. With incidents like this people will understandably be upset, but this makes it all the more important that there be calm. One tragedy must not be allowed to translate into another.

UNHCR, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to meet tomorrow to discuss the fate of Afghan refugees in Pakistan
Tomorrow the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan , along with the United Nations Refugee Agency will meet in Qatar to review the 2006 Afghan refugee returns from Pakistan . Also on the agenda is the long-term future of Afghan refugees in Pakistan . The government of Pakistan will present a three-year refugee camps closure plan, and UNHCR will present its own long-term strategy to resolve the issue of Afghans living in Pakistan .

New Minister for Refugees and Repatriation, Ustad Mohammad Akbar Akbar, is leading the Afghan delegation.

United Nations Environment Program to Celebrate World Environment Day
Next Monday is World Environment Day. The theme for this year is Deserts and Desertification, which is particularly relevant to Afghanistan as an arid country burdened by water shortages and drought.

The United Nations Environment Program and Afghanistan 's National Environmental Protection Agency will organize events in several cities to demonstrate the growing co-operation for the management and protection of Afghanistan 's environment. In Kabul UNEP and NEPA will organize a visit to Kole Hashmat Khan wetland. There several NGOs will demonstrate solar and other environmental NGOs.

World Bank Supports Water and Agriculture Sectors in Afghanistan
On May 25 th , the World Bank approved a $40 million grant to support urban water supply services, and a US$20 million grant to further develop the agriculture sector.

Currently, access to piped water infrastructure is among the lowest in the world at around 18 percent. The US$40 million grant for the Urban Water Sector Project will increase access to safe, drinking water in Kabul . It will assist the Government in increasing the performance of all urban water providers in Afghanistan , thus laying the foundation for future expansion of reliable, sustainable and affordable water and sanitation services.

Improving access to piped water in urban areas is a benchmark of the Afghanistan Compact. The aim is that by 2010 half of all households in Kabul will have such access, and a third of houses in other urban areas. In rural areas the aim is for 90 percent of households to have safe drinking water and sanitation to 50 percent.

The World Bank's US$20 million grant for the Emergency Horticulture and Livestock Project is designed to enhance productivity and stimulate increased and more efficient production of

horticulture and livestock products. It will improve incentives for private investments and strengthen institutional capacity in agriculture.

IOM gives trucks to Afghan government
Last Thursday, to help build local capacity, the International Organization for Migration handed over 43 trucks to the Afghan government.

Recipients of included the Ministry of Refugee and Repatriation Affairs, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, Ministry of Interior Affairs, Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Martyrs, Disabled and Social Affairs, Ministry of Public Health, Minister of Counter Narcotics, Balkh Department of Disaster and Preparedness and Mazar Municipality. IOM purchased the trucks in 2002 with the contributions from the Governments of Australia, Denmark , Ireland , Norway , UK , and USA .

The trucks were previously used to facilitate the safe, orderly and dignified transport of some of the 400,000 Afghan Internally Displaced Persons helped by IOM to return home since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

FAO holds Regional Meeting on Trans-boundary Animal Diseases
On May 24 th and 25 th , the Food and Agriculture Organization conducted a mid-term review meeting of the Italian-funded projected “Controlling Trans-boundary Animal Diseases in Central Asia .” All parties were happy with progress so far. UNAMA has repeatedly stressed the importance of regional cooperation to Afghanistan 's future. This project is an example of how regional cooperation can improve lives.

Started in August 2004 and concluding in July 2007 this project operates in Afghanistan , Pakistan , Tajikistan , Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan . It aims to increase food security by reducing livestock production losses caused by infections diseases, such as rinderpest, foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and peste des petits ruminants (PPR). It also aims to reduce poverty of those involved in the livestock farming sector in the region and to improve animal productivity and trade. One of the immediate objectives is to eliminate rinderpest in the region.

Although avian influenza (AI) is not included in the mandate of the project the FAO has still assisted the Government of Afghanistan to control avian flu, and the Italian government has allocated another $105,000 to the project to fight avian flu in Afghanistan .

DIAG launches in Laghman province
Tomorrow Tuesday a high level delegation from the Disarmament and Reintegration Commission will travel to Laghman to launch DIAG Main Phase in the province. The delegation will be headed by the first Deputy Minister of Defense and Deputy Chairman of the DRC Yusuf Nuristani.

Next Thursday, another high-level delegation from the D&RC will travel to Takhar to launch DIAG in that province.

The Disbandment of Illegally Armed Groups process aims to eliminate the influence of illegal militias, an important step in ensuring effective governance and rule of law in Afghanistan .

Questions and Answers

Question: Recently the UNODC head, Maria Costa, talked about the involvement of members of parliament in drug smuggling. Do you have any comment on that? And what is the evidence to support this claim?

Spokesperson: I'm afraid on that I'm not going to give you a very satisfactory answer. Mr. Costa is a far more eloquent speaker than myself. Some of you may recall that we've had Mr. Costa speaking here before, and he's always made very clear his opinions. On the matter of the evidence for this, that's a question for UNODC. If you're interested, we can seek to arrange a press briefing with them.

Question: As you mentioned earlier what happened was a road accident. And now there's killing and rioting. Thirty people have been killed. How is it possible such a small thing become so big?

Spokesperson: The short answer is we don't know how it's possible. We still don't fully know what happened in the incident this morning – that's why it's so important that the facts be properly established. We don't have confirmation on the number of casualties – but clearly a tragedy has happened. I'll reiterate the point that there needs to be calm. People are upset, but it's very important for everyone's sake that calm and sensible minds prevail.

Shengjie Li, ILO Liaison Officer

Employment is the fight against poverty. The Afghanistan government with the support of the international community is committed to achieving certain benchmarks, which are directly related to employment generation. In line with ILO's mandate the ILO office in Afghanistan is aiming to create more decent work opportunities for all, especially for women, people with disabilities, youth, demobilized soldiers, and returnees. The program strategy is to adapt ILO products and tools in relation to employment generation into the Afghan context.

Today I'd like to concentrate on two ILO projects – one is related to employment service center, and the other on the National Skills Development Program.

My colleague Mr. Gregor Schulz will now talk about the employment service center.

Gregor Schulz, ILO Chief Technical Advisor

I was here eighteen months ago when the project was in the beginning stage. Eighteen months later the project is fully operational in Kabul and nine provinces.

In the meantime more than 30,000 job-seekers have benefited from this service. Our project is unique in that we don't import foreign experts but we work closely with the government. Expertise is imported but 90 percent of the staff working on the project are from participating ministries. Those ministries are the Ministry of Martyrs, Disabled, and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Women's Affairs, and the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation. We started with the capacity-building in those ministries, and then those ministries implemented the project.

Our local coordinator Dr. Masood will briefly outline the project to you.

Dr. Masood, ILO Local Coordinator

The Employment Service Centers project is funded by the German government and this is a joint project among the Ministry of Martyrs, Disabled, and Social Affairs, International Labour Organization, and AGEF. The ESC project began its activities in Afghanistan in mid-2004, and the project's main objectives are to establish Employment Services Centers in Kabul and the provinces, to train well selected government staff for the ESCs to provide specific advice and labour market services to assist employers and jobseekers, to refer jobseekers to the appropriate training and employment opportunity, and to provide jobseekers with relevant and up-to-date advice and assistance on vocational training and self-employment opportunities available in their local labour market.

The services provided by the ESCs are designed to assist all Afghans. The ESC offices are equipped with modern office furniture and computers. The selected ministry staff are receiving on-the-job training in the tasks of vocational counselors. Their responsibilities include registering jobseekers for employment, interviewing jobseekers, receiving job vacancies from employers, referring jobseekers to appropriate vacancies, and identifying training opportunities for jobseekers.

Shengjie Li: I'd like to ask my colleague Erlain to give you a brief introduction to the National Skills Development Program, because this and the ESC program are related.

Erlien Wubs, ILO Gender Specialist

The National Skills Development Program is one of the national priority programs announced by President Karzai. The Ministry of Martyrs, Disabled, and Social Affairs is the lead ministry for this program. There is also a steering committee, which consists of eleven ministries, such as the Ministry of Education. The main objective of the project is to improve employment opportunities for the jobless by providing them with training, with access to employment service centers, and to microfinance and other development support services. It is the overall goal of the Afghanistan government to have 150,000 Afghans trained by 2010.

At the moment we have already started professional training under the 1384 training program. At this time about 2,150 Afghan men and women are being trained. Of those 2,150 at least 40 percent are women. In the current financial year we estimate we will train seven to ten thousand Afghans, and again our target is to have 40 percent of them women. A second important objective of the National Skills Development Program is to build the capacity of national training providers and government training providers. And lastly the National Skills Development Program will provide a facilitating environment for training – conducting labour market research, mapping existing training providers, improving the quality of trainers, and developing curricula and written material.

Questions and Answers

Question: Are there statistics showing how many Afghans are unemployed? Do you confirm the Ministry of Martyrs Disabled and Social Affairs statistic that the number of unemployed is increasing?

Shengjie Li: Thanks for your questions. There have been no statistics on the unemployed in Afghanistan since the early nineties, and ILO has not carried out any survey. With donor assistance ILO is planning a national child labour survey, hopefully before the end of this year. And also with the National Skills Development Program we will set up a labour market information system, and with that system labour statistics will be produced.

Regarding your second question I have to agree with the Ministry. And the reason for the rise in unemployment rate is the return of refugees from Pakistan .

Question: How successful have you been at attracting women to your programme?

Erlien Wubs: At the moment our implementing partners are training at least 40 percent women. And they haven't had any problems finding women, because in their experience Afghan women would like to get trained because they want to find jobs in the future. Of course our implementing partners have special strategies to facilitate the program – so they go into the village, speak with the shuras and the families. They also invite shuras and families to the training centers so everyone knows what's going on and they can see the benefits of training for women.

Question: Will we see unemployment service centers run by private agencies in the future?

Gregor Schulz: I think the idea of unemployment service centers in Afghanistan is a fairly new one. Before it was only the Ministry of Labour handling unemployment within the government institutions, and now they've opened up to the private sector as well. Whether there will be private agencies in the future, whether there will be a specific legislation dealing with the employment service centers that is something that has to be decided in the future.

Shengjie Li: According to the ILO convention we're promoting the employment service centers run by both the government and private agencies.

Question: Do employment service centers take into consideration the qualification of the applicant? Or is it just people with connections who get the jobs?

Gregor Schulz: That's what we try to avoid with the employment service centers. We help those who are qualified, not those who are well-connected. Of course we are fully aware that we can't solve all the problems – but we are contributing to a new system, which will enable employers to find qualified jobseekers. We also want to help qualified jobseekers who don't have connections. It may not be possible in all cases but we try our best.

Question: In some countries when employees are fired they have a right to ask why. What is ILO doing about labour rights here?

Shengjie Li: There is a Labour Code of Afghanistan, and it dates back to 1987. Early last year the government has requested ILO's help in revising this code. And with comments from ILO the Ministry of Labour Affairs has already revised it, and now there's a draft of a 2006 Labour Code out there. An Afghan delegation, which is leaving this afternoon, will attend the ILO conference, and they will present this draft to ILO for further comments.

One chapter of this new code deals with the employment contract, and that'll answer the question you raised.