Developing Information Technology Infrastructure and Civil Engineering Education at the National Military Academy of Afghanistan

Abstract

This paper describes the ongoing development and implementation of a civil engineering program and supporting information technology infrastructure at the newly created National Military Academy of Afghanistan (NMAA) in Kabul. We present a general model for educational capacity-building and apply it to both the information technology infrastructure and civil engineering program development projects at NMAA. We demonstrate how the use of this model facilitated substantive, well-coordinated progress toward the achievement of project goals. We conclude with lessons learned from our experiences in Afghanistan-lessons that are applicable to educational capacity-building in other areas of the developing world as well.