Afghanistan, Opions, Jan. 22 -- It has been said that government should be 'of the people, by the people, and for the people.' With this in mind, in my role as Mayor of Nili Municipality, we taken action to ensure the participation of citizens in urban-decision making processes. I share these experiences in the article below.

Afghan towns and cities - including Nili - are rapidly urbanizing and are faced with numerous constraints and challenges, including the largely informal nature of development, resource limitations, and gaps in infrastructure and service delivery. Fractured state-society relations and limited public confidence in government further compound these challenges.

Despite these challenges, urbanization presents numerous o...