authority for water supply and sewerage (cawss) with provincial water departments in the 14 afghan towns that had piped water supply systems. the entity did not perform well and was not run on the basis of private sector principles. as part of sector reforms the agency was dissolved and replaced by the afghan water supply and sewerage corporation (auwssc), a holding company for local utilities called "strategic business units" that are to be run based on commercial principles. as of 2010, the utility in herat (see above) was probably the corporation's best-run strategic business unit in the country. there are few qualified technical staff due to low salaries and poor working environments. most of the staff working on projects are funded by donors and leave once a project ends. however, there are encouraging exceptions. for example, a brother-and-sister team in the city of ghazni increased revenue collection from water tariffs by 75%, aided by the fact that meters located within premises can only be read by a woman if no man is in the house. service provision in rural areas hand pump providing water in balkh province in 2006 ngos play a major role in providing water supply and sanitation in rural areas of afghanistan. in 2003, through its ministry of rural rehabilitation and development (mrrd), the government began to play a role in rural water supply. it developed a "rural water supply and sanitation policy/strategy" for afghanistan. the strategy emphasizes the integration of health and hygiene education with water supply and sanitation and gives local communities a key role. they are supposed to decide about the type of infrastructure to be installed, finance part of its investment costs, and to operate and maintain it. this is to be done through democratically elected community development councils (cdcs) that have been created throughout afghanistan since 2003 as part of the national solidarity programme. the councils receive so-called block grants and are themselves in charge of choosing what to do with the block grants and selecting the companies that install the infrastructure. about 22,000 councils have been created in all of afghanistan's provinces as of 2010. about one quarter of the projects financed through the national solidarity programme are for water supply, sanitation and flood control, amounting to 11,700 projects with a value of us$157m financed between 2003 and 2010. however, the councils have limited to no technical skills in water engineering. provincial rural rehabilitation and development (prrd) units provide technical assistance to the cdcs during the planning and construction phase, hiring social mobilizers to consult with communities and to appoint caretakers to ensure operation and maintenance. but the technical support to the councils is often insufficient. according to a 2010 world bank report, the quality of hand pumps installed is sometimes inferior, making them more prone to break down. the prrds have no mandate or means to support cdcs in case of major repairs or rehabilitation. “capacity at the province or districts to support such maintenance or rehabilitation is almost nonexistent due to lack of tools, staff, and funding”, says a 2010 world bank report. external cooperation the main external partners in the water sector are germany, the united states and the world bank. germany germany provides financial cooperation through kfw development bank, as well as technical assistance through giz and the federal institute for geosciences and natural resources, bgr. german cooperation in the water sector is focused on urban areas, in particular on kabul and herat, as well as balkh, kunduz, takhar and badakhshan provinces in northern and northeastern afghanistan. bgr supported groundwater monitoring and modeling in the kabul basin as well as training of local partners from 2003 to 2006. united states through usaid, the united states supports urban water supply through the commercialization of afghanistan water and sanitation activity (cawsa) project since 2008. usaid works mainly in the northern afghan city of mazar-e-sharif, gardez and ghazni in the east as well as jalalabad. from october 2009 until september 2012, usaid also funded the afghan sustainable water supply and sanitation (swss) project. world bank the main vehicle for world bank support to water supply in afghanistan is the national solidarity programme (see above under rural water supply), using funds from various countries channeled through the international development association or the afghanistan reconstruction trust fund. in addition, in 2006 the world bank approved a us$40m grant to support an urban water supply project to improve water supply in kabul. however, by 2010 almost no funds were disbursed and the infrastructure component of the project had been cancelled. it is now to be replaced by a pilot project to support small private operators, connecting 500 customers in one area of kabul.