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WHEN CRISIS HITS, WE STAY AND DELIVER

A glimpse into UNDP’s work in Afghanistan through the eyes of SURGE Advisor Usman Qazi

December 15^th, 2021

When a crisis hits, saving lives and attending to immediate humanitarian needs is a top priority. But preserving development gains and helping people get back on the path of recovery is also very important. To help with the latter, UNDP has a cadre of trained professionals who can be deployed immediately to help communities better respond to and recover from crisis.

Usman Qazi is a seasoned UNDP staff member who has worked in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Pacific Islands, Kyrgyzstan, Syria and Somalia. He currently serves as Team Leader in the Arab States region and was deployed to Afghanistan in October 2021 to initiate an Area Based Development Emergency Initiative - ABADEI. The ABADEI programme aims to restore access to essential services, recover livelihoods, reduce localized climate risks and promote social cohesion.

Here, Usman offers insight into the realities on the ground, UNDP’s response and the inspiring resilience of the Afghan people.

A visual journey

My role as a trained SURGE Advisor, on top of my regular job, is to be ready to deploy to a UNDP country office whenever there is an urgent need. In the wake of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, UNDP made a call to “stay and deliver”. Along with other measures, it reached out to SURGE Advisors to serve as reinforcements on the ground. In this visual journey, I’ll take you through the first month of my deployment where I am supporting efforts to expedite the delivery of the ABADEI programme.

Godsend

Being a Dari and Pashto speaker, I had the privilege of directly interacting with programme participants on the ground. Rahimullah, from Mazar-i-Sharif, told me that he was really worried about his family as they didn’t have any food left, and he was accumulating debt at his local store. “This programme is a godsend,” he told me.

Supporting daily wagers

Daily wage earners have been hit especially hard. Under the ABADEI initiative, we have kicked off a canal cleaning project in Mazar-i-Sharif that will create more than 9,000 person-days of temporary work, enabling workers to earn half a month's worth of what an average household needs to survive. The workers are selected by the communities along the canals based on need and capability.

One UN

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is supporting schools and communities around Herat, such as this one in Shaidai village - a mixed community comprising locals, internally displaced persons and returning refugees. UNDP has allotted US$500,000 as parallel financing to provide solar lighting to vulnerable households, rehabilitate essential services like water supply and create conditions for the ethnically diverse community to live cohesively.

Nexus in action

We’ve also launched a cash-for-work initiative involving around 1,000 people to clean one of the main canals in Herat. In addition to providing immediate humanitarian relief, it is also enabling social cohesion by employing people from across different ethnicities and has the potential to bring development gains through revival of agriculture once the canal is in full flow.

Women-owned businesses

Despite all the barriers, Afghan women have not given up. They remain a focus of our efforts on the ground. During the visit to Herat, the UNDP leadership signed an MOU with the Afghan Women Chamber of Commerce to support women-owned small and medium enterprises through cash grants to help them stay afloat in these difficult times. We aim to help up to 150 businesses with grants ranging from $1,000 to $15,000.

Livelihoods

The mud houses in Balkh Province are vulnerable to natural calamities, especially floods. To mitigate the risk of flooding and provide residents an opportunity to earn some much-needed income, we’ve started a cash-for-work initiative to reinforce the banks of the Balkh River in the Khulm District.

A restful place

In Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif we also got the opportunity to visit some beautiful cultural and historical sites. This picture is from the shrine of Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, the Patron Saint of Herat. The local airport is also named after him. The shrine is considered one of the most complete Timurid era structures in the city, with intricate calligraphy and tile work that can be traced to that time.

Women leaders

In Herat, UNDP gave a message to the de facto authorities about our commitment to female empowerment by taking along two female colleagues and making sure they got a seat at the table. Our work on the ground continues!

The capacity of the UNDP Afghanistan Country Office has been impacted due to the precarious situation on the ground and restrictions on mobility. The conditions are tough and challenges are enormous, but the immediate visible impact of their work – seeing Afghan women and men find dignified means to survive – gives Usman and the other SURGE team members the energy and inspiration to keep pushing forward.

Footnotes

All photos: UNDP Afghanistan/Sayeed Farhad Zalmai

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FootNotes

All photos: UNDP Afghanistan/Sayeed Farhad Zalmai

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WHEN CRISIS HITS, WE STAY AND DELIVER

A glimpse into UNDP’s work in Afghanistan through the eyes of SURGE Advisor Usman Qazi

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