Support to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund – Monitoring

This project represents funds set aside for monitoring and evaluation of Canada’s support to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), as well as for technical assistance. For administrative reasons, sometimes the funds identified for this purpose are included in the main project budget and sometimes, as in this case, they are assigned a separate project number. The ARTF was established in 2002 to respond to the need for a dependable and predictable mechanism to support the Government of Afghanistan’s budget. The ARTF is critical to building a more functional and representative government system that is able to successfully deliver services to Afghan citizens. The ARTF consists of two funding channels: (1) the Recurrent Cost Window, which provides funding for salaries of non-uniformed government employees and for operations and maintenance expenditures, to enable the Government of Afghanistan to deliver and manage essential services. (2) the Investment Window provides funding for priority development programs in key sectors such as education, health, agriculture, rural development, infrastructure, and governance. Canada’s total contribution to the ARTF is valued at 136 million dollars and is divided into four components: (1) the first component provides operational funds to the government of Afghanistan through the Recurrent Cost Window; (2) the second component supports the System Enhancement for Health Action in Transition program (SEHAT) through the Investment Window; (3) the third component supports the Education Quality Improvement Program (EQUIP) through the Investment Window; and (4) this component represents funds set aside for technical assistance, and monitoring and evaluation.