Anticipatory actions to mitigate the impact of drought on agricultural livelihoods in acutely food-insecure rural areas of Afghanistan

Through this anticipatory action project, FAO addressed the immediate humanitarian needs of vulnerable livestock-keeping families and landless/marginal asset-holding families in the Faryab, Ghor, Kunar, and Samangan Provinces - given the expanded humanitarian access and the underserved/unmet humanitarian needs in these provinces – to prevent the loss of lives as a consequence of acute food insecurity, through the provision of season-critical livestock protection inputs and agriculture (backyard vegetable cultivation/home gardening) inputs.

There is a need to invest in Early Warning Systems (EWS). This is due to multiple factors: the ongoing La Nina event, which depleted technical capacities in national institutions on Early Warning System (EWS) coupled with a lack of technical staff amongst de facto authorities at sub-national/local levels; the withdrawal of the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) and World Bank investments on Drought-EWS from Afghanistan.

Through this project, FAO will establish a community-based drought EWS. This will allow real-time monitoring of pertinent indicators on hydro-agrometeorological factors (i.e. rainfall, snowfall and snowpack formation, soil moisture, surface water flows, sub-surface water flows in Kareez, wheat crop growth, vegetation conditions, pasture conditions, livestock body conditions), agricultural livelihoods (productive assets, crop cultivation, livestock keeping, and prices of pertinent agricultural inputs and products) and food insecurity changes. This will inform the potential impact analysis and designing of early action advisories on plant and animal diseases’ management to be provided in a timely manner to herders, farmers, and backyard vegetable cultivators.

Underpinned by the anticipatory actions approach, FAO will work with Food Security and Agriculture Cluster (FSAC)  partners – through this project – to assist drought-affected livestock-keeping and landless/marginal asset-holding families to achieve enhanced resilience to future shocks through the provision of:

• livestock protection packages consisting of concentrated animal feed, fodder-crop seeds and deworming support; and
• backyard vegetable cultivation/home gardening packages (seeds of eight vegetables and basic cultivation tools) complemented with technical training on climate-smart livestock management practices and climate-smart vegetable cultivation respectively, as well as awareness raising on COVID-19 safety measures.
  

The aim of this emergency livelihoods protection intervention is to enable vulnerable and marginal livestock-holding families and landless and marginal assets’ holding families in the selected four provinces to safeguard their food security through increased subsistence nutritious food production and by protecting productive assets. This increased access to quality agricultural inputs and to technical training coupled with anticipatory action advisories based on the community-based drought-EWS is expected to contribute to increased subsistence production of nutritious food, protection of productive assets, household food self-sufficiency, and generation of surpluses for sale as well as a reduced gap between domestic production and consumption in 2022.