Strengthening rural livelihoods and food security program in Afghanistan

Given the uniquely complex context currently in Afghanistan and the competing needs from temporal, thematic, and tactical prioritizations, FAO proposes to focus on four key components:

• Outcome 1: Increased production and processing of nutritious food through adoption of environmentally sustainable practices by smallholders;
• Outcome 2: Improved economic resilience of smallholders to shocks through enhanced rural diversification of agriculture-based livelihoods and income generation activities;
• Outcome 3: Enhanced enabling environment especially on enhancing the availability of quality seeds and other inputs at national level and making the same available at sub-national levels along with other extension services to smallholders;
• Outcome 4: Increased availability of information, learning, and analysis on food cultivation, harvesting, processing, storage and overall security and resilience building of smallholders.

The design of this program on strengthening rural livelihoods and food security draws upon the “Triple Dividend” approach. This approach seeks to implement actions that combine to (1) mitigate loss of lives and livelihoods; (2) stimulate agricultural driven economic growth; and (3) generate developmental and climate-related gains and co-benefits.