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FACILITATING HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
The Human Resource Development (HRD) Cluster
Members: Minister of Education (MoE), Ministry
of Higher Education (MoHE), Ministry of
Women’s Affairs (MoWA), Ministry of Labor,
Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled
(MoLSAMD), and Ministry of Public Health
(MoPH).
Introduction
Human resources are the backbone of a nation’s
economy, reflecting national capacity to supply
needed skills for economic growth and
productivity. Without a strong, equitable, and
appropriate approach to human resource
development, sustainable economic growth
remains elusive. Education and skills development
are the vehicles by which human resource
development occurs.
Despite significant improvements over the past
nine years, human resource development in
Afghanistan continues to face a number of
challenges. One of the most significant is the skills
gap between labor supply and market demands.
Despite a wide range of educational initiatives,
including formal and informal education, literacy
programs, technical and vocational skills-building
programs, neither recent graduates nor the labor
force as a whole are meeting the skill demands of
the market. According to recent estimates, 35% of
Afghans are not employed (2008 est.). This has
perpetuated a continued reliance on foreign aid and
dependency on foreign labor.
Further challenges to human resource development
pertain to equity, quality and access to education
initiatives, issues that are particularly acute for
girls and women. Gender disparities exist across all
sectors, but are most evident in education and
health, where few service providers and service
beneficiaries are female. Of the estimated 42% of
Afghanistan’s school-aged population which do
not have access to basic education, the majority
(approximately 70%) are girls. Educational gender
disparities are even greater in the poorest, less
secure, and remote areas.
The issues of access, relevance, and quality also
extend to higher education where opportunities for
enrollment are severely constrained and formal
educational offerings are few. Not surprisingly,
universities are unable to provide the quality or
quantity of professionals needed for the labor
market, particularly in the management and
technical fields where demands are critical.
Finally, the energy, ideas, initiatives and market
savvy of the private sector remain largely untapped
in the development of labor-driven human
resources, which in part, contributes to the wide
skills gap and the high unemployment rate.
Needed Response
The Human Resource Development (HRD) Cluster
was established with the objective of producing
quality human resources and of promoting and
sustaining economic development, which will, in
turn, foster stability and security for its citizens.
The HRD Cluster provides an inter-ministerial
forum for instituting systematic improvements and
is working at the policy level to find effective and
creative ways to enable Afghans – both men and
women – to more fully contribute to society, both
socially and economically. The Cluster is
organized around the shared belief that the
government, private sector, and civil society
should work together to form a coherent approach
to the development of human resource capacity to
maximize benefits for all Afghan citizens. In
response to the identified challenges and needs,
five main areas of focus for National Priority
Programs in the HRD Cluster were identified:
1. Facilitation of Sustainable Decent Work
Through Skills-Development and Market-Friendly
Labor Regulation Program aims to diminish the
skills gap by providing Afghan youth and young
adults technical and vocational education which is
high quality, market-relevant, demand-driven and
certified. For those who have been left behind from
the formal educational system, this program
provides literacy training in combination with the
development of marketable skills, thus enhancing
employability of a broad spectrum of the
population.
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