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Rural Afghanistan Faces Humanitarian Crisis, FAO Official Says
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South & Central Asia


RURAL AFGHANISTAN FACES HUMANITARIAN CRISIS, FAO OFFICIAL SAYS

April 12, 2023 10:53 PM
 * Shaista Sadat Lami

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Rein Paulsen, director of the Office of Emergencies and Resilience at the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (VOA)
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WASHINGTON — 

Rural Afghanistan is “facing a very concerning situation,” where households live
in a “quite desperate’” situation facing extreme food shortages and acute
malnutrition, said a U.N. official who visited Afghanistan in recent weeks.

Rein Paulsen, the director of the Office of Emergencies and Resilience at the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, told VOA “the situation
is concerning. Households lack basic supplies. They lack often seeds to produce
staple foods. They may lack animal feed to keep animals alive.”

The U.N. Food agency, World Food Program, said Monday it “urgently” needs $800
million in the next six months to help Afghans in need as a “catastrophic hunger
knocks on Afghanistan’s doors.”

Paulsen said beyond immediate needs, the agriculture sector in Afghanistan has
to be supported to help people produce for themselves as it is “one of the most
effective ways to make sure people have food at a precarious time.”

In a Skype interview, Paulsen told Shaista Sadat Lami of VOA’s Afghan Service
that all their programs “benefit either directly or indirectly” women in the
country in addition to having some activities that are focused on households
headed by women.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Could you please shed some light on Afghanistan's need, as we know the
situation is dire in the country, when it comes to food shortages and
malnutrition?

Rein Paulsen: Afghanistan's rural populations are facing a deep crisis and the
risk of a collapse of rural livelihood is real. The situation is deteriorating.
Obviously, the winter months have been difficult. We're in a lean season, but
just to put some numbers around this, the latest estimation we have that
approximately 20 million people are facing what's called acute food insecurity.
This is in the range of about 46% of the total population. So, this means that
we have a population at risk with rising levels of malnutrition, acute
malnutrition and situations that are quite desperate, families facing extreme
food shortages and acute malnutrition, like I said, disease levels are high. So,
the situation is concerning. Households that are in this type of a situation
lack basic supplies. They lack often seeds to produce staple foods. They may
lack animal feed to keep animals alive, which are vital for protein and for
access to milk. So, all in all, we're facing a very concerning situation, which
is why the FAO has been expanding its response in Afghanistan to address the
needs of some of the most vulnerable people in rural areas.

Just last year in 2022, the FOA directly supported more than 6 million Afghans,
and this was spread across all 34 provinces in the country, and we do it through
different packages of what we call emergency agricultural assistance. Some of
those are focused on protecting livestock. So, this is concentrated animal feed
and it's about animal health, veterinary support to keep animals alive. Some of
it is focused on allowing people to plant key crops. We had a very large
campaign for the winter wheat season as well as now for the spring cropping
season, where we give seeds and fertilizers, but also training to help farmers.
We also give cash to vulnerable families who may not have an opportunity to grow
for themselves. These are then the most food-insecure households. And indeed, we
also support women directly, female-headed households, and this can be through
poultry support programs, provision of chickens to allow access to protein or
indeed to allow cultivation of vegetables at a backyard garden level. So, we're
talking here about tailored packages that respond to vulnerable households'
particular needs.

VOA: How do you determine who should be helped? And how do you set your
priorities?

Paulsen: As a specialized technical agency of the United Nations, one of our
strengths is on a needs assessment on understanding vulnerabilities and
resilience and doing surveys and assessment within communities that identify the
families that are in most need of urgent support. And then we triangulate that
information through speaking to key stakeholders, even using independent
monitors to verify the information. We want to make sure that the people we
support are really those that are most vulnerable, most in need of support. And
this is an experience that we have in Afghanistan over years and decades and,
indeed, globally over years and decades, so people can have confidence in the
impartiality of the activities that we implement.

VOA: How does supporting the agriculture sector help with the humanitarian
situation in Afghanistan?

Paulsen: It's vital that we get a key agricultural input in the hands of farmers
so that they can take advantage of planting seasons as they're coming in. I
should say that one of the most cost-effective ways to support people is
actually not trucking in and providing international assistance. One of the most
cost-effective ways is to allow people to produce themselves. I mentioned the
winter wheat campaign. So, this is to allow a family of seven to produce all of
the cereal that they need for a 12-month period. It costs just $220. It's a
package that allows the family to produce enough food to meet their annual
cereal needs. It even typically leaves a bit of a surplus for them to sell. So
incredibly cost-effective interventions that allow people to support themselves.
Natural disasters do create an additional challenge and for Afghanistan
specifically, we know that as we were in 2022, this was the third consecutive
year of lower-than-normal rainfall and drought conditions, which has really
created problems.

VOA: We have reports on the shortage of aid activities. How worried are you that
the aid might not be enough for all the needy people?

Paulsen: I should say that donors provided a lot of funding last year, in 2022,
and really stepped up to respond to the drought situation. And organizations
like FAO were able to scale up our activities as a result. If I talk about the
most cost-effective way to respond, it's because the dollars aren't enough. We
really do need to maximize the impact of every single dollar that we receive for
funding, and this is why some of the agricultural interventions that I mentioned
are so important. This $220 wheat package that I talked about before, if a
family had to buy wheat flour for 12 months, if they had the money and if the
flour was available on the markets, it would cost maybe four to five times as
much to buy. If you had to provide international in-kind food assistance, the
cost could be eight, nine or 10 times as much. So, allowing people to produce
for themselves is one of the most effective ways to make sure people have food
at a precarious time. Beyond responding to immediate needs, people are then able
to keep seeds for the next season, they may have animals so there is a
multiplier effect. You can tell I'm a true believer in the role of agriculture
in terms of meeting emergency needs.

VOA: How many women are being helped through these agriculture programs, as we
know many women are the breadwinners of families due to four decades of war in
Afghanistan?

Paulsen: All of the agriculture emergency activities that we implement in
Afghanistan benefit women either directly or indirectly and we have activities
that are specifically designed to support vulnerable, landless, food-insecure,
female-headed households. This is one of our key priority groups for all the
reasons you mentioned. Our emergency activities are really driven by who are the
most vulnerable. And so, unsurprisingly, there's a segment that's focused on
female-headed households, in that regard. But indeed, women play a vital role in
agriculture in Afghanistan as they do in really every country around the world.
And it's important to target the right types of activities and support to
female-headed households.

Roshan Noorzai from VOA's Afghan Service contributed to this report, which
originated in VOA's Afghan Service.


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