The Third Donor Coordination Meeting was held

The Third Donor Coordination Meeting was conducted to give an update of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum’s achievements including; update of the Mining Protection Committee’s work on Illegal Mining, Afghanistan’s EITI validation progress, and announcement of the New Areas of Interest (projects for tendering).

In her opening remarks, Ms. Nargis Nehan, Acting Minister of Mines and Petroleum gave an overview of the achievements since the Second Donor Coordination meeting (August, 2018), including; the progress of finalization of the Minerals and Hydrocarbons Regulations, review of 14 large scale and 23 small scale pending contracts, survey of 36 mineral areas which are approved by High Economic Council and Cabinet and are ready for tendering, establishment of Mines Protection Committee (MPC) to tackle Illegal Mining under the new Mineral’s Law, and progresses made for the Extractive Industry’s Transparency Initiative (EITI) Validation.

The participants, who were representing more than 16 donor agencies and embassies, discussed the effectiveness of donor coordination and collaboration in further recognizing and addressing the needs and priorities of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum as an important way to support Afghanistan in achieving sustainable growth and development through the extractive sector.