The Afghan National Solidarity Program (NSP) and the planned Citizen’s Charter were designed to build new relationships of accountability but there is a friction between the technocratic logic that drives program design and the logic and motivations that drive village life. This paper builds on previous research into the use of cluster analysis to construct village typologies and outlines a village mapping approach that might help to understand better village behaviour. The author argues that fundamental changes to NSP/CC and community-based development approaches are needed, replacing technocratic designs with greater understanding, agility and flexibility in design, implementation and monitoring of interventions.
