Kabul Urban Survey - Groupe URD

Need for flexible urban plans
The other challenge for urban plan designers is to produce flexible plans which allow
for potential consultation and evolution.
5.3.4 Kabul Municipality mapping
Pathak considers that the KM urban planning office has a significant potential of architects
and engineers that would be capable of establishing urban plans, after appropriate training.
They need to update their knowledge. For now, the map drawing office and skills are too
weak in KM office. They “are working from the foundation of the 1978 Soviet Master Plan.
Muhammad Ali, one of the staff members trained at AIMS, is still hand-drawing plans for a
new residential zoning area in a neighbourhood in west Kabul.” 37 “There are some ongoing
attempts of capacity building of the existing KM staff. Regular English, computers and GIS
courses are organized by the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service
Commission (IARCSC) and UNDP/AIMS program. Trainings sessions are also being
conducted by national and international advisors on strategic city planning and financial
management. But, the current knowledge and skill base is so low that it will take several
years for the prerequisite capacity to be built.” 38
Comments
The absence of a consensus on spatial vision is one of the main problems facing all
institutional, international and private urban actors. This issue is linked to:
- lack of global urban data (demography, social, poverty, economic),
- lack of urban plans, or outdated graphic administrative documents,
- weak capacities in urban planning and in generating digital plans with insufficient
computer equipment,
- difficulties of cooperation between the two main urban actors, the Ministry of Urban
Development and Kabul Municipality
- Weak communication within the MUD
5.3.5 AGCHO & AIMS as mapping offices
Before all urban skills within MoUD and KM can be updated, an international organisation
has been trying to fill the gap. This initiative is contested, by afghan cartography office
(AGCHO).
AIMS, as international UN actor, and AGCHO, as Afghan mapping institution
AGCHO is an institution that lies within central government, like a ministry. Its role is to
provide “every kind of land survey, map and mapping activities in Afghanistan… It is also
involved in surveying for the future gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan to the Arabian Sea.” 39
To cope the lack of urban plans, AIMS was set up by the UN to provide and share spatial
information products and services within the international community as well as to share
spatial vision with Afghan institutions. Their work consists of elaborating a wide range of map
products, database design and distributing of documents. “The UNDP programme
Afghanistan Information Management Services (AIMS) has worked closely with Kabul
Municipality and the Afghanistan Geodesic and Cartographic Head Office (AGCHO) to
digitalize, reform and refine Kabul’s map 40 . The process of urban mapping, as an
unavoidable base for any programme, is sufficiently important and complex, as explained by
S. Hegland (UNDP) below.
37 Hegland S., UNDP, Afghanistan Management Information is mapping Kabul and Progress Towards
Development, 2004
38 Pathak P., Kabul, February 2006, “ Urban Policy, priorities and Recommendations for Kabul”, in
chapter: “Inadequate Capacity for Urban Development Planning and Management” p 10.
39 idem note HEGLAND, UNDP
40 idem note HEGLAND, UNDP
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