WFP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific - 2016 SPRs RBB 2016 SPRs by country | Page 78

Standard Project Report 2016
diversity.
Strategic Objective 4: Reduce undernutrition and break the inter-generational cycle of hunger.
Outcome: Reduced undernutrition, including micronutrient deficiencies among children aged 6-59 months,
pregnant and lactating women, and school-age children.
Activity: Treatment of moderate acute malnutrition (MAM).
The procurement of specialised nutritious foods took longer than anticipated and hence the actual treatment of
MAM among children aged 6–59 months only started in November. Two months of MAM treatment programme
implementation was not enough time for the performance indicator, including coverage, to reflect programme
performance, so it was not reported. However, in those two months, nearly 2,400 children aged 6–59 months with
MAM and 5,300 PLW were enrolled in the treatment programme. WFP reached 176 percent of planned PLW.
Planning figures had been based on population figures, which were actually lower than the real figures, so the
number of PLW reached was within the acceptable range.
The specialised nutritious food (Wawa Mum) for the prevention of malnutrition for children aged 6-23
months, arrived in December and consequently actual distribution started in January 2017.
Progress Towards Gender Equality
Over the course of the EMOP, WFP and its partners addressed gender-based inequality through systematic
consultations with communities, local administrations and women shuras in order to involve women in
decision-making, project design and implementation. These efforts are expected to be reflected positively in the
gender cross-cutting indicators in 2017.
WFP Gender Policy 2015-2020 required the expedited application of Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)
Gender Marker principles in the design and planning of the interventions. All WFP operations in Afghanistan,
including this EMOP, now incorporate the IASC Gender Marker, and have successfully achieved a rating of 2A/2B.
This has been further detailed in a field-level agreement (FLA) signed with each of WFP's cooperating partners as
well as in a cooperating partner proposal template for all activities.
WFP involved returnees and local communities in the planning and implementation of the emergency
response through the formation of food assistance committees and the use of a more comprehensive system of
information sharing in terms of rations and targeting criteria. For particular issues related to gender, WFP has a
gender strategy and framework that includes programme guidance regarding female participation in design,
implementation, targeting and monitoring.
To ensure women's concerns were properly understood, WFP provided mobile phones to contact women as well as
identified a respected woman in the community to collect information on behalf of WFP. In consultation with women
beneficiaries, female-friendly distribution sites appropriate to the Afghanistan context were designed and
established during the emergency response.
There is still a way to go when it comes to directly engaging women beneficiaries on the ground through female
monitors, and their proportion remains low. This issue is being addressed on a number of levels. Meanwhile, WFP
has been successful in having a good representation of women SCOPE registrars.
One way WFP addressed gender balance in the field was to require cooperating partners to submit a strong gender
justification when negotiating agreements. WFP has worked on a number of initiatives with United Nations Entity for
Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women(UN Women), including piloting an internship programme for
female graduates, and has now integrated this initiative into its regular human resources work, allowing WFP to
create an ever-expanding pool of talented, experienced female Afghan candidates.
Protection and Accountability to Affected Populations
Pakistan has hosted Afghan refugees for more than three decades, throughout the many conflicts Afghanistan has
witnessed in this period. In Pakistan, millions of Afghans could raise their families, seek economic opportunities,
send their children to school and access basic services. Pakistan, which is not a signatory to the Refugee
Convention of 1951 nor the Additional Protocol of 1967, was home to the largest Afghan refugee population
worldwide for many years, with the largest overall refugee population until 2014. However, deteriorating political
relations coupled with an increase in insecurity in Pakistan, led to government directives aiming at abruptly reducing
Afghanistan, Islamic Republic of (AF)
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Single Country EMOP - 201024