WFP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific - 2016 SPRs RBB 2016 SPRs by country | Page 24

Standard Project Report 2016
According to the Afghanistan Living Conditions Survey (ALCS) 2014, the proportion of poor food consumption
households is substantially higher among households headed by women compared to households headed by men
(51 percent and 23 percent, respectively) due to several factors related to income and work, such as lower
education levels resulting in fewer skills, cultural factors which prevent women from working, and poverty as a result
of being widowed and losing the main breadwinner in the family.
Outcome: National institutions, regional bodies, and the humanitarian community are able to prepare for, assess
and respond to emergencies.
The Emergency Preparedness and Response Capacity Index (EPCI) was designed to measure the goal
of "strengthening the capacity of governments and regional organizations and enable the international community to
prepare for, assess and respond to shocks" - under Strategic Objective 1 of WFP’s Strategic Plan (2014–2017). It is
a measure of how effectively WFP works with host governments in establishing and managing disaster
preparedness measures. The six variables include: hazard analysis and early warning in support of food security;
food security and vulnerability analysis; food assistance planning; humanitarian supply chain management systems;
emergency telecommunications; and national preparedness and response in line with WFP's mandate and
recognized areas of expertise.
WFP hosted the annual EPCI workshop in December for line ministries and other actors working in emergency
preparedness and response. The result for the indicator shows that the national capacity for emergency response
remains limited in Afghanistan,.The overall score for EPCI was 2.6 which represents low to medium preparedness,
but which was higher than the 2.4 score from 2015, against 4 as the maximum score. The improvement was found
in all six variables indicating that WFP worked with government in all six indicators rather than concentrating on one.
Food security and vulnerability analysis had the highest score of 3.1, while emergency telecommunications scored
the lowest, at 2.2. The area with the highest increase compared to the baseline value was in hazard analysis
and early warning in support of food security (0.5), followed by food security and vulnerability analysis (0.4), food
assistance planning and national preparedness and response (0.2) and the lowest increase was in humanitarian
supply chain and emergency telecommunication (0.1).
The overall value was only slightly higher than the baseline, indicating room for improvement despite
extensive collaboration with the State Ministry of Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs, the Ministry of
Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock, the Central Statistics Organization and the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and
Development, through coordination, information sharing and capacity strengthening.
In 2017, WFP's priorities will focus on i) emergency telecommunications; ii) hazard analysis and early warning in
support of food security; and iii) humanitarian supply chain management systems.
Strategic Objective: Support or restore food security and nutrition and establish or rebuild livelihoods in
fragile settings and following emergencies (SO2).
Outcome: Improved access to assets and/or basic services including community and market infrastructure.
Activity: Asset Creation.
WFP's strategy focused on disaster risk reduction (DRR) and community-level resilience activities. WFP thus
prioritised low-tech asset creation activities based on community priorities. Some of the major assets created in
2016 include 254 acres of acres of land used for terracing, 1,896,656 hectares of fruit trees planted, 597 kilometres
(km) of feeder roads built and maintained, and 373 km of irrigation canals constructed/rehabilitated.
The Community Asset Score (CAS) is an outcome indicator that measures the increase in the number and
functionality of resiliency-based assets that enable a community and the households within it to be more resilient or
less negatively impacted by shocks. In 2016, the CAS was collected from 160 communities covering 820 project
sites. The CAS calculation shows that in 81 percent of these communities, positive changes were observed in
2016.
Funding constraints and delays due to security and weather issues (particularly in the north-eastern region) affected
the completion of some asset creation activities and consequently a limited number of low-tech and low cost
projects were implemented. However, earmarked funding from various donors including the Netherlands played a
vital role in implementing small-scale projects on time without interrupting or reducing the ration size.
As per the indicator table, the CAS value for 2016 is about 6 percent lower than the previous follow-up value which
was 87 percent. The main factors contributing to the reduced CAS value are as follows:
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Overall funding resources allocated for asset creation activities in 2016 was about 10 percent lower than in
2015;
Most projects implemented were of a shorter duration, rather than the standard six-month duration;
The short-term projects (three to four months) were completed before the first cycle of the CAS survey could
start. For instance, particularly in northern and eastern regions, the projects started in April and were completed
Afghanistan, Islamic Republic of (AF)
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Single Country PRRO - 200447