According to the Doing Business Report 2013, Afghanistan ranks 164th among 183 economies on the ease of dealing with construction permits indicator. Currently, investors need to wait for a period of at least 334 days in order to get a construction permit. Alternatively, they need to pay bribes to speed up the process. This situation discourages local and foreign investors and gives way to corruption. There is a pressing need to eliminate unnecessary delays, reduce corruption in issuing permits, and increase investor interest in the construction sector through the reform and simplification of construction permit issuing process within Kabul Municipality. By establishing a streamlined permit process, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) seeks to reduce corruption in this priority area as a step towards transparent institutions dealing with the private sector. In 2012, Transparency Internationals Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranked Afghanistan 174 out of 176 countries. Several obstacles cited by Afghan businesspeople, including access to land, the construction permit issuance process, anti-competitive behavior and tax administration are closely related to corruption. The objective of this project is to develop a simplified yet effective construction permit system and regulatory framework that would improve the governments capacity and efficiency in issuing construction permits. By doing so, the private sector will benefit from a reduced burden and cost at the national and sub-national levels, through the elimination of the CP bottleneck, which hampers the capacity of the growing Housing Sector in Afghanistan to meet the demand gap. A streamlined CP process would also minimize opportunities for corruption thanks to an improved and increasingly transparent process. This would serve as a foundation for boosting the ease of doing business and investors perception. The new CP framework will also establish the framework for the GIRoA to retroactively formalize unpermitted buildings. The project aims to reduce the time it takes to obtain construction permits and to improve the capacity of the civil servants operating the CP process. Changes are expected to increase both the efficiency and capacity of the Kabul Municipality to issue construction permits and, hence, increase applications under the reformed permits system. In addition, expected savings to the private sector, as a result of the improved system, would be achieved over the longer term of the project. The project will provide the technical support to: - Implement and monitor the endorsed simplified new CP manual processes and related reporting package in the City of Kabul to ensure a smooth process flow and make necessary adjustments based on early implementation results. Supported by the ICT Global, the Project Team will provide the technical support needed to ensure an adequate selection of the software provider/developer, the delivery and implementation of improved management reporting tools to monitor the CP process workflow. - Provide the necessary legal expertise to support the clients legal functions in drafting the legal framework changes in light of best practices, tailored to the Afghanistan local context and guide the client through consensus-building activities around the reform among government officials and private sector players, through consultation and awareness-raising events. - Support the GoA in the implementation of the Capacity Building/Training Plan. The Training Plan will comprise two levels to address operational level staff and management (decision making) level officials. - Run the Private Public Dialogue (PPD) as per the design stage.