CHAPTER 9
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Afghanistan
Afghanistan Supporting victims of war, drought and floods towards better livelihoods ZOA has been active in Afghanistan since 2000. The many returnees are straining the resilience of the already impoverished population. In our programmes in the North (Saripul and Jawzjan Provinces), the South (Uruzgan Province) and in Kabul Province, we focus on WASH activities, livelihoods and occasionally emergency relief. We also pay a great deal of attention to capacity building of local NGOs and local governance structures at village level.
Twenty-five farmer groups with 25 members on average received training and good quality seed under the Kitchen Garden Project. This project was a success, and complementary to the Horticulture and Livestock Project under the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (World Bank funded). The HLP has, however, ended and it is as yet unclear whether there will be a next phase, which is a pity because the Kitchen Gardening Project is too small to run independently.
ZOA Afghanistan in 2012
We started a new programme in Kabul province. This has been challenging because the team is – except for one member - completely new to ZOA. It is encouraging how well the team has started implementing WASH activities in Deh Sabz district.
The North was hard hit in 2012: first the people were faced with severe drought which led to a serious reduction in harvest. Then came the floods which swept away many houses, especially in Saripul and also in Uruzgan. Both the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and the constituency in The Netherlands responded quickly to enable emergency relief. We were able to build 363 shelters for vulnerable families whose houses were destroyed in Saripul, to repair roads and irrigation channels and distribute food and non-food items to affected people in Saripul, Jawzjan and Uruzgan. In the North ZOA is supporting Community Development Committees in implementing their activities under de National Solidarity Programme. The training of and cooperation with these CDCs in the past few years is bearing fruit; their capacity in managing projects has been enhanced. In Saripul we continued to facilitate the National Solidarity Programme with 54 CDCs, and started two new rounds of the NSP with 252 CDCs and 360 CDCs respectively.
Two local partners have been implementing ZOA’s WASH programme in Uruzgan. Besides hardware activities such as constructing new wells and repairing old ones, ZOA staff focused on hygiene awareness and capacity building of local Water Committees and mechanics to ensure that wells are being looked after. It is really encouraging to see that there are more and more opportunities for women to be involved in hygiene training, as trainers or as participants. ZOA is also building capacities of all nine local partners involved in the Dutch Consortium for Uruzgan. Training topics were, among other: project management, project planning, reporting, finance and monitoring and evaluation. Staff from the local Department of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, and the Department of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock also participated in the training.
Disaster and emerging local governance Joop Teeuwen, Country Director ZOA Afghanistan: “Having lived in Afghanistan for more than twelve years, I am still amazed how flooding can wreak such havoc in an otherwise so dry land. I firmly believe that being there as ZOA with the communities when disaster strikes, has helped cement relationships. It was also very neat to see one of our partners in the South quickly being on the scene of flooding, to help victims whose houses were destroyed. Local organisations acting alongside the communities are a true sign of strengthening local governance and cohesion”.