Achieving the impossible – how 50 women found work on Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and UNOPS construction site in Samangan, Afghanistan

This summer, UNOPS and a group of Afghan women, with financial support from Sida, managed to break through the cultural barriers typically hindering women from taking up employment in Afghanistan. They managed not only to get the consent of the local community representatives as well as the male household members for the women to take a job; they also achieved the nearly impossible – finding employment for women typically performed by men.

Working to rehabilitate 84.5 km of gravel and bituminous road in the two provinces of Saripul and Samangan, UNOPS and Sida were looking for a way to truly include women in the road works. Up until then, Afghan women had mostly been involved by weaving gabion baskets or selling food to the male workers when the women together with UNOPS project management drew up a plan for their further involvement. The women were to chip stones to produce gravel for the construction of the roads.

‘Our community outreach officer went out to talk to the community representatives and then to each individual male household member to convince them of the benefits of having the female household members work too, as well as to convince them that we could ensure the upholding of cultural beliefs’ explains UNOPS Project Manager, Karma Jimba.

The men agreed, and a female community group was established to oversee the mobilization, work and payment of the women.

Since December 2007, UNOPS has supported the Government of Afghanistan in implementing the Sida funded ‘Rural Accessibility Improvement Project’ in order to enhance year round accessibility in the two Northern provinces.

As part of this project, with the aim to construct 50 kilometers of road with gravel surface and structures in Saripul and Samangan provinces, women started to be employed in June 2009.

So far, 52 women are involved in gravelling-producing activities in three different gravelling sites of the province. Many of them are householders who work eight hours a day for three months on these gravelling sites. Sometimes their salary is even the only income for their whole family.

‘I do this job because of poverty’, said Bibi Haji, one of the women working in Samangan. ‘This money is a vital need for my family. My husband is too old to work and I have five children, all of them under the age of 16. I am the only person able to work in this family.’

Since the beginning of this project, more than 150m³ of gravel has been produced by the women of Samangan.

Rehabilitating roads in Afghanistan primarily takes place during the summer period due to the tough winter, which means that the women will now have to wait for spring to come before they can work again.

‘Based on the success from this year, in addition to further gravelling activities, we are drawing up bigger plans for a pilot project to try and include women in some of the decision making parts of the rehabilitation works. Our hopes are that eventually the women of Samangan will be able to have their say on road designs, implementation plans, and the organization of workers’, ends Karma Jimba from UNOPS.