ActionAid has launched a cash for work programme in Northern Afghanistan, which aims to provide around 5,000 families with enough food to cover at least half of their daily requirements throughout the winter

 

The programme, launched together with the EU through its Humanitarian Aid Department, is to be implemented in 40 of the most vulnerable villages in Jawzjan and Balkh Provinces.

“Since we started our operations in 2002, the Cash for Work Programme is one of our highly implemented labour-intensive activities, which aims to provide urgent humanitarian support for those who are suffering the most,” says ActionAid Afghanistan’s country director GB Adhikari. 

“However, as we also use the rights-based approach in our projects, we always emphasize the importance of using their daily earnings to create more established and enduring livelihood opportunities.”

A recent vulnerability analysis of 150,000 people in this area identified 5,376 as being particularly vulnerable, including widows, the disabled and elderly, as well as daily wage earners who have lost their land or livelihood due to drought. 

Of these, 480 will receive direct aid, 96 will work as site supervisors and the rest will work on canal cleaning, building school boundary walls or road rehabilitation.

The programme is being launched at Jawzjan and Mazar Provincial Conference Hall during the week of 22-26 October 2008 and will bring together local and national government agencies as well as international players such as TearFund and Save the Children UK.

Recent statistics from the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) revealed that at least 1.5 million people in 19 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, mostly farming communities in the north, have been severely affected by drought and are in need of urgent humanitarian relief.