Other joint efforts between local and central authorities, as well as the PRT and UNAMA are currently underway in the northern provinces to address the establishment of a neutral non-aligned police force. Last Wednesday (17 September) the PRT and UNAMA met with the Balkh and Faryab Provincial Chiefs of Police. The key issue was the establishment of a functional professional police structure. Other critical areas included payment of salaries as well as logistical and communications support from the central authorities. Similar meeting are scheduled this week with the police chiefs of Samangan, Sar-i-Pul and Jawzjan provinces. These meetings will be used as a forum for developing a generic police structure with the Ministry of the Interior that can be applied in all five provinces.

Amani High school, founded in 1924, acquired an excellent reputation, which it has maintained until now. From 1924 until 1985 the school was actively supported by Germany through the placement of German staff. In spring 2002 the German support was revived. In spring 2002 work to renovate the partially destroyed and nearly completely looted building was begun with funds from Germany. The Aischa-i-Durani School, one of the best girls' high schools for in Kabul is also being completely rehabilitated by Germany. The construction work at Aischa-i-Durani school will be finished in spring 2004.

The media are invited to the official ceremony tomorrow. We have a press release at the side of the room with more details for you.

The Director of the Institute, Renate Elsaesser, started developing cultural programmes in September 2002 to support the building up of cultural processes in Afghanistan. Since then a variety of projects in film, theatre, music, and fine arts have been implemented in cooperation with different Afghan institutions.

The media are invited to the reopening ceremony tomorrow, which will be followed by a press conference. The Institute is located in Wazir Akbar Khan, Shamahmod Street, opposite the Foreign Ministry and the Chinese Embassy. There is press release at the side with more details.

World Food Programme (WFP), Public Affairs Officer, Alejandro Chicheri

Last week Mr. Carlo Batori, Counselor and Deputy Head of the Italian Mission in Kabul visited two different projects in Khost both funded by the Italian Co-operation that will benefit from this latest donation of rice.

The first, located around Khost city, is helping to establish 400 vegetable kitchen gardens in 400 women beneficiaries' houses. Implemented by WFP's partner ACDO (Afghan Community Development Organization), women are receiving vegetable training, including seed multiplication techniques.

The gardens provide job opportunities, and at the same time improve the women's food security, enhance nutrition and increase their empowerment and status. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) supplies vegetable seeds such as pepper, lady finger, chilis, onion and cucumber.

The second project provides both tailoring and literacy training for 42 vulnerable women, who receive WFP food assistance to encourage their participation. When finished, after 4 months, participants will receive the tailoring tools to be able to continue as independent professionals.

At the end of his trip Mr. Batori reiterated to Afghan Government Officials in Khost the continuous Italian commitment to the people of Afghanistan. During the last two years Italy has contributed to WFP's Emergency and relief operations with a total of US$8,131,337.

It is also the first initiative of the newly created Women Empowerment Unit of the Kabul Area Office and aims to enhance women participation in WFP's activities in Afghanistan.

Women-run NGOs have increased over the last two years. Currently totaling about sixty, WFP supports women NGOs particularly in their early stages. The newly launched Training Programme for Women-run Afghan NGOs focuses on building capacity in formulating and implementing projects that contribute to enhancing the livelihoods of women through WFP interventions.

During the first three weeks of the programme, trainees will be introduced to WFP and its activities through classroom sessions and workshops on the different aspects of programming, as well as on activities such as assessment and monitoring. Ensuing field visits to project sites or meetings with relevant officers in the field allow trainees to observe projects through the implementing phases. The training also comprises sessions on administration, finance and logistics, during which accountability and reporting are among the main topics.

When the trainees have been familiarized with project design and implementation cycles, they will be better equipped to draft proposals for WFP and other funding agencies.

The 10 candidates who have been selected for this first session are members of the staff of women-run Afghan NGOs operating in a wide array of activities, such as vocational training, literacy courses, education, construction, health and agriculture. In line with WFP Afghanistan's policy for capacity building of government counterparts, a staff member of the Ministry of Rehabilitation and Rural Development (MRRD) is also taking part in the training.

The Women Empowerment Unit intends to continue to organize monthly training sessions for women-run NGOs. At present four such programmes have been planned until December 2003.

The training is in line with WFP's Enhanced Commitments to Women particularly because it promotes the increased participation of women and girls in ensuring household food security by focusing on how households and societies gain and advance when women are better nourished, better educated, participate more equally in economic activities and have a stronger voice in decision-making.

Deputy Minister of Education, Mr. Said Hussain Ishraq Hussaini, and Program Officers of WFP, participated in the distribution ceremony in Kabul city. The 14,567 teachers will receive a four month ration amounting a total of 40 litres. Distribution will soon be expanded to other provinces including Khost, Paktya, Kapisa, and Ghazni.

UNHCR Spokesperson, Maki Shinohara, Displacement from Daikundi

Preliminary reports indicate that local villagers of Kaman, Peshparan and Kulipalat have fled to Qaidi village in Ashterlai district and are currently hosted with friends and relatives there. We are closely monitoring the situation and are prepared to assist these families if necessary. The fighting has currently subsided, so we hope that these families can soon return back to their homes in safety.

Our return monitoring teams have collected over the past two years numerous reports of human rights abuses and harassment by the local commanders in Daikundi area. Other problematic areas of displacement in Afghanistan due to insecurity include, northern provinces such as Faryab, northern Uruzgan including Daikundi and Sharistan, and Kapisa province north of Kabul. UNHCR currently does not recommend displaced families to return to some of the specific areas in these provinces due to on-going conflict or human rights abuses.

In a positive development, we are grateful to the Afghan Government giving more attention to the internal displacement problems in Afghanistan. President Karzai himself met with a delegation of the Return Commission task force last Sunday and discussed their findings on the obstacles to return to the northern provinces. Upon recommendations from the President, Minister Nazari of Refugees and Repatriation briefed the National Security Council last week on returnees and IDP issues, with special attention given to security-related matters.

There are 220,000 internally displaced people in Afghanistan, majority of whom are drought affected displacement in the southern provinces. UNHCR is working to find immediate and long-term solutions to internally displaced people with an increased involvement of the central government, particularly the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation and the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.

Questions and Answers

Question: DDR was postponed because of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) reform. Defence reforms were announced last night so when will DDR actually starts and how do you see the reforms; will they help?

Media Relations Officer: I'll answer that question in two parts. I'll give a comment on UNAMA's position on the reform and then we have Sultan Aziz, the Director of the DDR programme, the ANBP, to answer your questions on disarmament.

On MOD reform we have taken note of the announcement yesterday of the high level appointments within the Ministry of Defence (MOD). We are, however, not yet in a position to comment on the overall details.

It is a well-known fact that the UN has advocated strongly for the composition of the MOD to be brought in line with the Presidential Decree on the Afghan National Army (December 2002), which states that this Ministry should be a national institution that elicits the trust and respect of the population at large. In this context it will be the reaction of Afghans throughout the country that will determine either the success or lack of with regard to this important reform initiative. Therefore in the coming days we will listen carefully to leaders and ordinary Afghans about their reaction to these appointments. This is all the more important since popular support for the reform of the MOD is a key ingredient of the DDR programme, which we hope will start in the coming weeks.

Questions to Sultan Aziz, Senior Advisor to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Programme Director of Afghanistan's New Beginnings Programme (ANBP)

Question: When will DDR start, what will you do and do you have any plans for Kabul?

Senior Advisor: We have plans for everywhere. Yes we do have plans for Kabul but the determination of when they will start in Kabul is a function of a number of considerations and that is going to be determined once we have gone to Kunduz, Gardez and to Mazar-i-Sharif. I think you would appreciate the fact that through the process itself we are going to learn a lot about the things that we should do properly and the things that we should not have done. So we will do a 'lessons learnt' once we have gone through the first three pilot phases and at that time we will make a determination to either proceed with Kabul or not. The issue is somewhat more complicated and so for Kabul we have always said that we would consider it as Parwan for the mustering area. This is because most of the people who are in Kabul to be demobilized are people who are originally from the Shomali and the northern plains. So it would make a lot of sense for them to be demobilized and reintegrated in that area. But as I said this will be determined subsequently.

Question: Is the UN satisfied with the ethnic balance of the reforms announced last night? What are you waiting for?

Senior Advisor: I think you've heard from the spokesperson just a few minutes ago. We are waiting to see how people in this country react. I think that this is a very important issue. Let's go back to the fundamental purpose of this reform - it was to engender support for a national Ministry of Defence. I don't believe it is an issue that we can comment on. We have to wait and see and as the spokesman told you there will be probably some announcements by the UN down the road.

Question: Will you please explain the mechanism of collecting the weapons? Who will be involved?

Senior Advisor: We have what we call Mobile Disarmament Units. These units will be embedded at the divisional level of headquarters, which means we will just go to the divisional level to collect arms. People will be brought from various other units. In the morning what we will do is actually take the weapons and put a special barcode on them and then return the guns. After we take their names and put all their names in a database and we affix the barcode on the weapon, we return the weapon back to the individual combatant. Then the combatants in the afternoon go through a formal ceremonial parade where they present their guns to their officers and then they are officially demobilized. At that point in the ceremony they are issued medals and they are given certificates, which says that they are no longer members of the military. The next day they come to our regional offices where we actually put them through a process of watching films so that they understand that they are not the only ones, that there are others before them and we will also be able to give them briefings on what their responsibilities as civilians are. We will also have them sign a code of conduct, which is very important. They will promise that they will not bear arms etc. and at the end of that process they will be issued ID cards. Once they have the ID cards then they can receive their benefits. There are benefits in terms of cash benefits. We are also working very closely with our colleagues from WFP who will provide them with a food basket and then they go home. They come back in about a week's time and then they meet with case workers at which time we will be able to assign them to specific jobs. For the first pilot process we have developed over 6,000 jobs in various areas so we will be able to assign them immediately to work. That, in a nutshell, is the process.

Question: How are you going to handle the Afghan Militia forces who are fighting side by side with the Coalition troop? The second question is about warlords like Pacha Khan, how are you going to deal with them?

Senior Advisor: I think both of those questions in some ways are related. Let me say first that the focus of this particular exercise is to look at existing units under the MOD, and the bulk of the people and commanders who are under the umbrella of the MOD - both officers and ordinary soldiers. In terms of militias that are fighting with the Coalition if they are part of the Afghan Military Forces, they would be considered and they would be organized as such. But at the moment I am not aware of anything that says that they will be targeted. I suppose that could happen at a subsequent [time] when we go into the main phase. It all depends how the work with the Coalition proceeds and whether the Coalition is in a position to be able to allow these people to be demobilized. I'm just speculating but that might not be the case. In terms of Pacha Khan - frankly I don't have any plans to disarm him, he hasn't called me so we'll just wait and see and if he comes up with his weapons and wants to disarm I'd be more than happy to take his weapons from him.

Question: In many parts of Afghanistan there are armed people who keep the security who will be disarmed. If we want to disarm these people, are there alternative forces to keep security in these places?

Senior Advisor: The current order or scheme of operation is such that as we demobilize people, some of these functions will be increasingly taken over by police. We have been involved in negotiations and discussions with the Ministry of Interior and other security forces to make sure that there isn't a security vacuum. But there's no suggestion at this point that, as we do this process, this vacuum is likely to appear. The numbers that we're talking about are such that at the moment none of these people are providing security. But with the increase of police and training of police as well as their rapid deployment, I think that situation should be well in hand. We're not going to contribute through DDR to a situation where greater insecurity results so we will modulate and make sure that the process we engage in is done in a completely objective and hopefully clear manner so that we do not create more problems. We are here to solve problems and increase security not to decrease security.

Question: You mentioned that you can provide 6,000 jobs - could you elaborate on the kinds of work the demobilized people are going to engage in?

Senior Advisor: We have anything from basic construction work that's available, to short term agricultural work. We have what we call rural options where we provide a variety of tools, seeds and this is all very focused on different areas. We have schemes where we are actually working with existing government programmes where we will purchase equipment and actually put one or two people as a business in charge of that equipment such as using bitumen machines, fixing roads, culverts etc. So the idea is not only to provide work but also to provide the possibility for businesses so people can actually get out of the black economy and start operating in a proper and profitable manner. So we are looking at a variety of schemes with different partners, different NGOs, the government, the United Nations family and also governments who are providing bilateral assistance.

Question: Once the process starts what sort of timetable do you have?

Senior Advisor: Let's assume we start somewhere at the end of October, I would think that it would take about 10-15 days to demobilize the first batch in Kunduz and then we would move down to Gardez. Within that first month we should be able to cover both Kunduz and Gardez and then we would move to Mazar. In Mazar it's a slightly different proposition because we have two particular groups, in Mazar itself and in Shibergan, so we would have two Mobile Disarmament Units deployed and we might actually consider increasing the numbers because of the numbers in Mazar. So I would think we should be finished with at least the first three places, if all goes well and winter does not arrive too early, sometime in late November or early December. Then we would just start going down south to Kandahar and then on to Kabul.

Question: How long do you envisage it taking for 100,000 strong militias to be disarmed?

Senior Advisor: At the moment my guess is as good as yours, but I would think anywhere between a year to a year a half. I would suspect that as we go forward we would learn a lot and we will be able to speed up the process by which we do the disarmament. But of course the biggest challenge and I think this is important to mention, is going to be the provision of jobs. This means that security has to improve. It means that the ability of the government to expand the economic base has to proceed accordingly to allow people to be absorbed into meaningful jobs. Because that is the real challenge, at the end of the day no matter what we do, and how much money we spend, we have to be able to create conditions for sustainable investment to take place in this country to be able to provide jobs for people.

Question: The DDR programme, is it targeting individuals who have got guns or groups?

Senior Advisor: We are not targeting individuals. We have always said there are lot of people in this country who have guns. They have guns because they have to protect their community themselves. In some places there is no presence of police and even some of the people that are armed you have to protect yourself from them as well as those who wear a uniform. We know that very well. The suggestion here is not to take ordinary people's guns from them but to focus on those who are factional and organized groups because they are the people who are threatening people in different areas. That requires a specific focus on being able to bring them together, identify them and disarm them but doing it under the umbrella and with the inclusive understanding and cooperation of the Ministry of Defence. I think will be very successful.