WFP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific - 2016 SPRs RBB 2016 SPRs by country | Page 26

Standard Project Report 2016
monitoring reports indicated the acceptance of the supplementary food being provided and the population’s
satisfaction with the quality of the food.
MAM treatment was operational in 24 of the most vulnerable provinces out of a total of 34 provinces, and was
implemented through 596 government health facilities. Treatment of MAM coverage refers to individuals who need
treatment against those actually receiving treatment. The desk-based calculation estimated MAM coverage to be 43
percent, which is considered below the accepted standard of ≥ 50 percent, and is 4 percentage points lower than in
2015.
Since 2014, Action Contre la Faim (ACF) has supported 14 Semi-Quantitative Evaluation of Access and Coverage
(SQUEAC) and five Simplified Lot Quality Assurance Sampling Evaluation of Access and Coverage (SLEAC)
(multiple districts) assessments for SAM in districts where MAM treatment was also being implemented. Across the
19 assessments, the lowest estimate for SAM coverage was 14.4 percent and the only area having a chieved a level
of coverage that met the SPHERE standard (≥ 50 percent) was Nangarhar Province in the east. Most of the
coverage estimates was in the range of 30-40 percent. It is assumed SAM coverage also reflected MAM coverage
since the two services were conducted in the same geographical locations.
Lessons from the 2014-2016 SAM coverage surveys indicate that distance was the main barrier in relation to
accessing the integrated management of acute malnutrition (IMAM) sites, coupled with other factors such as
weather and security conditions or availability of transportation. Lack of resources in terms of the cost and
availability of transportation, poor road access and challenging terrain in mountainous areas posed further
challenges. On the other hand, inaccessibility was less of a concern in urban settlements and places close to major
roads. To address the accessibility of MAM and SAM treatment services, the pilot assessment from Kandahar
Province demonstrated that active mobile health teams can be a useful mechanism to ensure coverage where
access to IMAM sites is challenging. WFP, in partnership with the Nutrition Cluster, is working on a minimum
treatment package to be carried out through mobile clinics in the hard-to-reach areas in 2017.
Outcome: Increased equitable access to and utilisation of education.
Activity: School Meals - take-home ration (THR).
Under Strategic Objective 4, WFP's school feeding activities in the form of take-home rations continued to show
improvement in some areas but not all. Resourcing constraints and insecurity continued to adversely
affect attendance in WFP-assisted primary and secondary schools. However, due to funding shortages, WFP had
no choice but to reduce the ration size by half for the entire school year.
The average annual rate of change in the number of children enrolled in the WFP-assisted schools increased
slightly from 7.4 percent in 2015 to 8 percent in 2016. However, the attendance rate of primary school girls in
WFP-assisted primary schools decreased from 81 percent to 74 percent and the attendance rate of the boys in the
WFP-assisted primary schools also decreased from 81 percent to 75 percent in 2016. The attendance rate of girls in
WFP-assisted secondary schools also significantly decreased from 83 percent to 67 percent.
There were considerable security and access challenges in various parts of the country which meant that WFP
could not manage to provide the THR (provision of 4.5 kg of vegetable oil per student per month) according to the
plan. TThe districts of Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan provinces had the worst security situation, with
limited access by cooperating partners. In Garmser, Nawa, Marjah, Nad-e-Ali and Nahre Saraj districts of Helmand
province, the plan was to distribute THR to 52,918 schoolchildren in grades one to nine, but no food was distributed
as a result of security and access issues. A similar situation was also reported for Chinarto and Shaheed Hassas
districts in Uruzgan province.
Due to insecurity, the school girls and boys had limited access to their schools which resulted in reduced school
attendance rates in 2016. This had a greater effect on secondary school girls as, due to cultural reasons, the family
is reluctant to send their older daughters to school. This is less of a problem for children in primary schools.
Activity: Vocational Skills Training (VST).
The VST activities were focused on training vulnerable women and men on different skills which can improve
household incomes. For men, the training was mainly in the field of mobile phone repair and computer hardware
repair skills, while for women training focused on sewing, tailoring, food processing, weaving, painting and
calligraphy, jewellery design and hand engraving.
Overall the food security situation of these beneficiaries improved compared to the baseline (2014) and the previous
year. The data collected through post-distribution monitoring from vocational training participants indicated that
since 2015, the poor FCS for households headed by men improved from 12 to 5 percent. Given that the poor
FCS did not change for households headed by women and improved for households headed by men, the borderline
scores for both groups improved from 70 to 45 percent. Consequently, an overall increase from 22 to 50 percent in
the acceptable FCS was reported.
Afghanistan, Islamic Republic of (AF)
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Single Country PRRO - 200447