BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – The Afghanistan Ministry of Counter Narcotics recently awarded 13 provinces in Afghanistan (10 fall within the assistance of Regional Command-East) with $9 million worth of aid for superior performance in the fight against poppy cultivation with a program named, the Good Performers Initiative (GPI).
 Selected communities in provinces that are recognized as poppy-free, and have pledged to continue to oppose drug use, production and trafficking, have begun receiving aid from this program.
 This incentive program has recently been improved offering an expanded and better funded GPI for development projects, which involves giving up to $50,000 directly to provincial governors for use in development projects, according to a report describing a press roundtable pertaining to the counternarcotics situation in Afghanistan on Aug. 29, 2007.
In order to begin new projects, the governor’s office, provincial council and local provisional reconstruction teams are required to jointly approve each development project. The three organizations select officials to implement and supervise large- and medium-sized projects (more than $50,000), which are covered in the provincial development plans. District governors can directly receive grants of less than $50,000 to use for small projects.
The 11 RC-E provinces that will receive funding for development projects are: Logar, Paktia, Panjshir, Wardak, Ghazni, Paktika, Khost, Parwan, Kunduz, Bamyan and Nuristan.
One example of the improvement in eastern Afghanistan is the dramatic decrease in poppy cultivation in the Nuristan province.
 According to the U.N.’s Afghanistan Opium Winter Rapid Assessment Survey, Nuristan Province has seen a 1,516 hectare (3,745 acres) decline in poppy cultivation between 2006 and 2007 making it poppy-free and eligible for financial incentives. 
The type of projects on the drawing board range from donations of farm machinery and planting orchards to construction of canals, hospitals, dorms, stadiums and vocational schools.
Many of the projects are agriculturally based.  For example, Panjsher Province is spending almost $400,000 on farm machinery and Maidan Wardak Province is building 115 greenhouses worth almost $1 million.  In turn, other provinces have chosen to use the money for other needs.  Khowst Province has chosen to build a school, while Paktika Province is building a hostel, at a cost of nearly $1 million.
Kapisa Province held a ground breaking ceremony for a sports stadium Feb. 21, according to Mollie Jackson, a narcotics affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. An award of $500,000 has been allocated for building the stadium, which will take 10 months to complete, according to Afghan Gen. Khodaidad, Afghanistan’s acting counter-narcotics minister.
A twelfth province, Laghman, also saw a decrease in poppy production, according to the U.N. Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007