Highlights
WFP continues to provide food and nutritional assistance to vulnerable people in Afghanistan. However, as a result of funding shortfalls, WFP could not provide food to 504,000 vulnerable people and cash-based transfers to 404,000 people as lean season support in January and February respectively.
Afghanistan is facing an unprecedented influx of returnees and an increased level of insecurity causing sporadic and unpredictable bursts of displacement.
Without the valuable support of our donors, WFP may eventually reduce its footprint in Afghanistan. WFP urgently needs USD 67.4 million to provide planned programme assistance to displaced people, malnourished children, nursing mothers and schoolchildren, and to support people through disaster reduction activities.
Operational Updates
As part of WFP’s support to the Government of Afghanistan in the area of disaster risk reduction (DRR), the second session of the capacity building training for the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development field staff was carried out at the end of March. Thirty participants from six provinces (Bamyan, Khost, Paktika, Paktya, Ghazni and Daikundi) were provided with training by lecturers from Kabul University and WFP Afghanistan. The training aimed to provide a deeper understanding of the importance of consistent, reliable monitoring of asset creation projects and their impact on communities, and to increase understanding of the links between DRR, asset creation and food security.
WFP representatives from Rome and Kabul carried out a dedicated mobile vulnerability assessment and mapping (mVAM) training for WFP staff in the Country Office, Kabul Area Office as well as staff from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, World Health Organization (WHO) and iMMAP. A total of 18 WFP and partner staff were trained in mobile data collection, data analysis and visualization, and had the opportunity to learn from experiences using mVAM in different country contexts.
WFP’s information and communication technology (ICT) unit conducted a one-day workshop on SCOPE, WFP’s corporate beneficiary and transfer management platform, for members of management in the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation in Kabul. The workshop aimed to increase government capacity in using SCOPE, particularly through demonstration of the registration process. Additional training will be planned in the near future.
To ensure that protection is at the forefront of WFP’s and partners’ work, representatives from Herat, Jalalabad and Kabul were trained in protection and accountability to affected populations (AAP). Overall, 46 people were provided with training, including 22 WFP staff and 24 partner staff members; 10 women and 26 men. Participants ranged from experts in ICT, security, procurement and logistics. The training illustrated the importance of protection and AAP in humanitarian response, the normative framework guiding these fields, and how this comes into practice in WFP operations.