¡¡¡¡KABUL, Oct. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Voter registration kits donated by Canada and the United States are arriving here this week as Afghanistan prepares for its first nation-wide public registration process in the history, a United Nations spokesman said on Sunday.

¡¡¡¡Registration workers are scheduled to fan out across the country in December to register some 18 million Afghans eligible to vote in the next year's historic general elections, which will elect a new government to replace the current transitional one.

¡¡¡¡The kits, which include cameras, films, registration books, stationary and other materials necessary for the registration process, will arrive in Kabul, the capital city, in 27 containers from Monday through Friday this week, the spokesman told reporters.

¡¡¡¡These voter registration kits, which later will be kept be in storage in different locations around the country later, are a joint donation of 7 million US dollars from the Canadian government and 1 million dollars form the US Agency for International Development (USAID), according to the spokesman.

¡¡¡¡The United Nations last week said the upcoming voter registration project in Afghanistan has a big funding shortfall ofsome 57 millions dollars.

¡¡¡¡Donor nations so far have contributed or pledged 23.5 million dollars out of the total budget of 78.2 million, it said.

¡¡¡¡The Afghan transitional government, with the assistance by the United Nations office here, is to start the voter registration work first in eight major urban areas around the country, including Kabul, Bamyan, Jalalabad, Kundoz, Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat,Kandahar and Gardez. Enditem

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