Incentivizing Reforms in the Attorney General's Office

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This project is an Investment Project Financing (IPF) with Performance-based Conditions (PBCs). It will help improve the AGO’s capacity to deliver on its mandate by incentivizing a set of reforms through PBCs. The project is fully results-oriented and provides AGO the opportunity to mobilize support for targeted reforms. The AGO has committed itself to a number of human resources management and organizational reform that will improve the operational and functional performance of the AGO as an institution, which in turn will help the fight against corruption and improve the application of the rule of law in general. The project will incentivize successful implementation and completion of the agreed reforms through reimbursement of agreed eligible expenditures to the Government of Afghanistan, linked to the achievement of pre-agreed results (PBCs) over the two-year project implementation period. This project responds to key interconnected and complementary areas for reform implementation which together support addressing the most pressing challenges and binding constraints within the AGO.The project’s components and subcomponents and their preliminary budget breakdown are presented below:Component 1: Improved Workforce Management in AGO (USD 12.6 million): 1. This component focuses on gender-balanced, competent, and professional staffing for the AGO, including promoting integrity and accountability in the AGO workforce. To accomplish these targets, the AGO has committed to a transparent and predictable legal framework to be reflected in the Law on the Structure and Authority of the AGO. EU and its contracted consultants have provided necessary recommendations on the amendments to address the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the existing Law. The AGO will also amend the relevant procedures to be fully compliant with the amended Law. The AGO will be supported to achieve these goals through the two sub-components: 2. Sub-Component 1.1: Transparent and merit-based recruitment and professional development of AGO staff (US$ 8 million). This sub-component targets a transparent and objective, merit-based recruitment system for prosecutors and administrative staff. Support will be provided to the AGO to recruit new prosecutors in compliance with the recently approved recruitment procedure for prosecutors, adhering to the principles of fairness, competitiveness, and openness of the recruitment process. Similarly, support will be provided to the AGO to also recruit new administrative staff competitively following the civil servant's recruitment procedures. In parallel, incentives will be tested and applied to improve the staff gender balance in the AGO, to ensure that women make up at least 23 percent of all new recruits (prosecutors, administrative staff). This component will also support the AGO to independently design and deliver lifelong professional learning programs for prosecutors, including specialized training for prosecutors employed in the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Anti-Corruption, and Counter-Narcotics units. 3. A detailed analysis of the AGO identified several critical HR-related challenges. Conducted as part of the Human Resources Management Strategy developed in 2017 findings continue to be relevant and have been reconfirmed by recent observations. Challenges are numerous, among the most pressing ones are: the lack of trained and adequately prepared prosecutors; the shortage of skilled administrative support; the heavy workload for prosecutors; the inefficiency in random case allocation resulting in some prosecutors having a much higher workload than others; inadequate case management systems; the lack of financial and physical security of offices and personnel, relatively low salaries compared to the judges, and low participation of women in the AGO’s workforce. However, progress has been made concerning the latter with women now representing 17 percent of the AGO’s workforce (mostly administrative staff) compared to 3 percent in 2016.4. Sub-Component 1.2: Improved staff integrity, incentive structure, and secure working environment for women: (USD 4.6). This sub-component will devise an appropriate mechanism for vetting of staff, i.e. both newly recruited as well as those already working in the AGO. The vetting system will confirm prosecutors' academic qualifications and fitness for the duty. The vetting system will also identify the prosecutors and administrative staff who should be removed from the positions they are not qualified to hold. Related, the AGO will also establish a functional mechanism to ensure that all AGO staff comply with the Assets Declaration Law by submitting all asset declaration forms to the Independent Commission on Anti-corruption. Also, under this sub-component support will be provided to develop and implement a new HR policy, together with a new salary scale for prosecutors that is on par with the salary scale for judges. To encourage quality service delivery, the new policy will foresee links between salary increases and the performance of prosecutors. Further, assistance will be provided to help the AGO establish a dedicated Gender Workplace Complaint handling mechanism with the responsibility for receiving, investigating, and acting on complaints of gender-based discrimination or harassment in the workplace. This mechanism will form part of the adoption and the effective implementation of Gender Equality in the Workplace Policies at the AGO. Component 2: Strengthened Organizational Performance in select areas (USD 6.12 million): 5. This component incentivizes the AGO to improve individual performance and performance of the organization. A focus will be put on proper investigation of corruption cases and violence against women cases, and better protection to victims and witnesses of violence and crime. Under this component, the AGO will be incentivized to: a. Investigate all domestic violence cases reported to the AGO within the timelines set in the relevant regulations and procedures. b. Investigate alleged corruption cases referred to the AGO within the timelines specified in the applicable procedures; andc. Improve service delivery to victims of crime by better protecting victims, witnesses, informants, and whistleblowers.d. This sub-component will also focus on putting in place a performance evaluation and management framework for the AGO based on clear, objective, and transparent criteria. Component 3: Strengthened Case Load Management (USD 2.88 million): 6. This component will support the AGO to establish case standards based on which different types of cases will be defined and distributed among prosecutors across different levels. The standards will ensure more efficient distribution of prosecutors' workload and help AGO in the workforce needs assessment. As part of setting case standards and improving the efficiency of random case allocation, support will also be provided to develop and implement an action plan to clear current backlogs. The AGO will identify and track all backlog cases which were estimated at around 8,000 in 2020 and develop a multi-year plan to clear the identified backlog cases.