Fact Sheets

Speeches Shim

OVERVIEW

The objective of the five-year AGRED program is to enhance the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) and the Directorates of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (DAILs) at provincial and district levels. The aim is to sustainably develop and deploy technology and knowledge-based solutions, and provide extension and advisory services to Afghan farmers and herders.

PROGRESS TO DATE

Overview
 
Food insecurity continues to affect large numbers of vulnerable Afghan households. According to Afghanistan Central Statistics Office data for 2008, around 7.3 million people (31 percent of the total estimated population) is food insecure with another 5.4 million (23 percent) vulnerable to food insecurity.

Overview

Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives – North, East, West (IDEA-NEW) is a USAID project that began in March 2009, and is scheduled to be completed in March 2014.  This project continues USAID’s efforts to provide agricultural incentives and economic alternatives for provinces in the East as well as the northern and western poppy-prone regions of the country.

OVERVIEW
This three-year program improves the livelihoods of the rural poor in northeastern and central Afghanistan by building Afghanistan’s capacity to sustainably manage its natural resources. This is done while also strengthening linkages between local communities and regional and national government bodies, thereby improving governance.  The program focuses on two geographic areas, Band-e-Amir National Park and the Hazarajat Plateau of Bamyan province, and the Wakhan Corridor of Badakhshan province.  
 

The Commercial Horticulture and Agricultural Marketing Program (CHAMP) works to strengthen the capacity of Afghan packaging manufacturers, improve the skills of exporters in business administration and finance, establish an Agricultural Export Knowledge Management Unit that will disseminate reliable data on agricultural exports, promote investment in cold storage and pack house facilities, expand quality standards certification, and support freight and logistics facilitation to promote agricultural trade. These efforts will stimulate the growth of Afghan exports to regional wholesale markets and supermarkets by up to $30 million annually. CHAMP has trade offices in New Delhi, India, Dubai, UAE; and Almaty, Kazakhstan to boost Afghan agricultural exports in major regional markets.

USAID has created a constellation of seven Development Labs that harness the intellectual power of great American and international academic institutions and that catalyze the development and application of new science, technology, and engineering approaches and tools to solve some of the world’s most challenging development problems.

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