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Building bricks for a new Afghanistan

UNDP’s targeted approach to emergency assistance brings services, jobs and hope to millions

July 21^st, 2023

Decades of conflict and instability have devastated Afghan families, local communities and the national economy. The situation presents a critical test for the international community’s commitment under the 2030 Agenda to ‘leave no one behind’. Through the ABADEI programme, UNDP is working with the Afghan people to advance progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 1, no poverty, and Goal 5 on gender equality.

Badghis, a province in northwest Afghanistan whose name translates as "where the wind comes from" is a land of stunning contrasts. The howling air sweeps down over barren, snow-capped mountains into lush valleys, through bustling towns like the provincial capital Qal-e-Naw, where the rush of the wind is drowned out by tuk-tuk horns and the hammering of repairs, and around quiet villages in which the only other sounds are mountain streams and the bleating of goats.

In 2021, the war followed the wind out of the same mountains and, almost overnight, the economy ground to a halt – as it did across Afghanistan. By 2022, US$5 billion had been wiped from national GDP and UNDP was predicting that soon 95 percent of the people could be below the poverty line. A few months later, came bans on women working and on girls’ education. The schools fell quiet, like the valleys. Shops were shuttered as customers turned into beggars. Families borrowed what they could, then sold their possessions. Sometimes they sold their children – into work or marriage. Across the country, cupboards emptied – of food, of medicine, of all essentials.

UNDP's response was to create "ABADEI" – the Area-Based Approach to Development Emergency Initiative. With existing funds repurposed through the Special Trust Fund for Afghanistan, and with new support from the EU and Japan, ABADEI sprang into action in a matter of weeks to create life-saving interventions in all eight regions of Afghanistan, from Kabul to the remotest, hardest-to-reach villages in provinces like Badghis.

The project focusses on basic human needs, complementing humanitarian assistance with longer-term support. There are hundreds of individual activities, but they cover four main areas of work:

Essential services, like health care and clean, affordable energy
Local jobs and businesses, including through cash-for-work programmes and grants for women-led businesses
Helping farmers improve yields and profits and protecting them from natural hazards made worse by climate change
Building community resilience and social cohesion

Since 2021, the project has reached almost 10 million people with the kind of help that can save and transform lives: new tools, seeds and irrigation canals for farmers; jobs for women and men who want to rebuild their own communities, support their families and recover their own dignity; malaria, HIV and tuberculosis (TB) medicines; access to new markets and new skills for women businesses owners – or for women who want to get new business up and running; and opportunities for communities to come together and heal. To look forward. To imagine and plan for a new Afghanistan.

“I traveled far into the desert to gather wild grass for my children to eat, but they would never have survived. Tell the donors and organizers that the money saved seven human lives.”

– Sayed Bibi, Balkh, cash-for-work project participant

A SUM GREATER THAN ITS PARTS

ABADEI, or the Area-Based Approach to Development Emergency Initiative, is a complicated name for what's actually a simple concept: bring a range of interventions – from infrastructure to cash grants to training – to one area and make sure they all work together so that the end result is greater than its individual parts.

For example, if you build a road in Ghor and a market in Kunduz and you give training and seeds to farmers outside Mazar-i-Sharif, that's great and you will definitely help some people in all of those places. But if you coordinate your interventions, so that the road you build goes from the market you've refurbished to reach the farmers who now have more products to sell, you create a virtuous circle where each intervention improves the value of the others.

Now you have started to create resilient communities. And if you put in place mechanisms to address long-held grievances and resolve any new conflicts, you help protect those gains for the years and generations to come.

STEP BY STEP... WITH THE COMMUNITY

ABADEI'S work is designed hand in hand with local communities and implemented by a network of over 60 local NGOs.

Thanks to UNDP's eight field offices, more than 40 years of continuous engagement with the people of Afghanistan and hundreds of national and international staff, we have the experience, insight and community connections to identify what's needed and what will work best in different locations and a rapidly changing context.

“They started a project here and I got to work on the flood wall. I have been able to help protect local property and crops, and also earn a living for my family.”

– Khalid, Khulm village, employed on a scheme to improve flood protection and irrigation, making his community more resilient in the face of climate change

THE SCALE OF THE NEED

UNDP's recently released Afghanistan Socio-economic Outlook for 2023 paints a stark picture of the challenges:

30 percent drop in incomes since 2020
27 million people affected by disasters in 2022 alone
94 percent of NGOs forced to stop or reduce operations by the ban on women working
An estimated 34 million people need food assistance
At least 85 percent of people below the poverty line for 2020
Almost 60 percent live in damaged shelters, and over 40 percent cannot afford repairs
78 percent of families are in debt; 57 percent have reduced the number of meals they eat and 14 percent have sent children to work

“I used to give [my husband] the fresh part of the watermelon. My children and I would eat the rind.”

– Nafisa, in Nangarhar, on struggling to care for her husband, who had TB, after the economic collapse

EXAMPLES OF SUCCESS

HEALTH CARE IN KAPISA

Working with local partner Care International, ABADEI has equipped the hospital in Kapisa with solar panels, bringing clean energy and a reliable source of power for diagnostic machines, fridges to keep medicine safe and lights to allow safer emergency operations at night.

It's just one example of basic services interventions that have improved health care to more than 6 million people since ABADEI began.

CASH FOR WORK IN MAZAR

Infrastructure projects provided short-term jobs and an emergency cash injection for families in Mazar, helping to keep children in school and food on the table when many families faced the prospect of severe hunger.

Across Afghanistan, ABADEI has provided temporary jobs for more than 700,000 people. And the roads, canals and other projects continue to benefit the communities that built them.

WOMEN BUSINESSES IN HERAT

With grants, training and the creation of women-only market days, women in Herat have been empowered to start businesses.

Country-wide, ABADEI has supported more than 34,000 women-led businesses to thrive and is now helping them reach new markets, including overseas.

FARMING IN BALKH

ABADEI's support to farmers includes irrigation systems and flood walls, equipment and inputs like fertilizer and pruning shears, as well as training on modern techniques, such as intercropping and composting. Now farmers can get higher yields from the same land they've used for generations, even with the seasonal changes and greater disaster risks posed by climate change.

Across Afghanistan, ABADEI has trained almost 30,000 farmers, provided inputs for 100,000 households and protected 43,000 households from flooding.

SOCIAL COHESION IN HERAT AND BEYOND

To reduce the risk of future conflicts, ABADEI trains facilitators to hold mediation and dialogue sessions and works with peer-to-peer networks, traditional community structures, religious leaders, women and youth on conflict management processes, benefitting more than 500,000 people.

We've also helped women access legal aid and psychosocial support and supported local community development plans.

HOW IT ALL FITS TOGETHER

The Chaharmisra road provides a lifeline connecting three villages to markets, schools and hospitals. ABADEI provided an immediate cash injection to these communities by employing local people to repair the road, adding drainage and a stone wall to protect it from flooding.

In turn, the road boosted the economy. Now farmers can get their produce to markets, tuk-tuk drivers can make a better living, women can get to hospitals to give birth more safely, and their children have an smoother route to school.

"Our products will reach the market faster and our children will stay in the community with the work they can find here."

– Mujahid Ameri, farmer

Footnotes

Photos by UNDP Afghanistan

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FootNotes

Photos by UNDP Afghanistan

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Building bricks for a new Afghanistan

UNDP’s targeted approach to emergency assistance brings services, jobs and hope to millions

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