A/HRC/4/98* page 4 7. Millions of Afghans are chronically or seasonally food insecure. Afghanistan’s first Millennium Development Goal report states that 40 per cent of the rural population is unable to count on sufficient food to satisfy their most basic needs. United Nations agencies reported a harvest shortfall of up to 1.2 million tonnes in 2006 and a drought affecting up to 2.5 million people, half of whom are children. As few as 23 per cent of Afghans have access to clean drinking water and in rural Afghanistan only 1 in 10 Afghans have access to sanitation. 8. The basic needs of women and girls are still unmet. Afghanistan has the lowest female literacy rate in the world (estimated to be 10-18 per cent) and an estimated 57 per cent of females are married before their sixteenth birthday. Progress in education means that 37 per cent of girls between the ages of 7 and 12 now attend school. However, of an estimated 2 million children currently not attending school, 1.3 million are girls. This is due to an insufficient number of formal schools and qualified teachers, physical inaccessibility of schools due to security concerns and negative parental attitudes regarding girl’s education. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) also cites early marriage as a significant factor in the high dropout rate of girls. 9. Violence in the majority of districts in the south has had an impact on the delivery of aid and services due to restrictions placed on the movement of personnel of the United Nations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the Government. Failure to deliver basic services contributes to a feeling of disillusionment with the Government. A report published by AIHRC in May 2006 concluded that the Government is failing to meet its minimum core obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Afghanistan is a party. 10. Despite the above, there has been important progress in a number of areas. The Government has established a development framework; it has set monitoring mechanisms in place; and it has established a crisis management group, which is addressing security concerns in the four southern provinces. Policies on irrigation, rural and urban water supply and sanitation have been drafted and there has been an expansion of the Government’s Basic Package of Health Services. However, the AIHRC report shows that almost 55 per cent of the population are not using available health facilities due to difficulties of access or perceptions of poor quality care. The Ministry of Public Health concluded in 2006 that there had been a modest improvement in maternal health as a result of investment in reproductive health services, but the disparity between rural and urban areas is still enormous. 11. In terms of protection of vulnerable groups, the Government is addressing its admitted failure to mainstream social disability and social protection issues into development programmes, through an analysis of the situation of the chronically poor and a gender assessment of the design and implementation of the National Solidarity Programmes. To address one of the obstacles to girls’ school attendance, the Ministry of Education is training a pool of female teachers and offering land and housing incentives to them. 12. Illegal seizure of land and insecurity of land ownership is an ongoing and widely reported problem. Multiple land claims and resulting feuds continue to generate fresh conflicts. The judicial system is accused of delays and frequent corruption when arbitrating disputes and validating documents and ownership deeds. In the majority of cases, traditional community dispute resolution mechanisms are preferred; disputes are settled swiftly, but not always fairly.