Rebuilding the country through community driven development

ACTED has been present aside the Afghani population since 1993. Today, Afghanistan is ACTED’s first country of intervention where we implement one of our largest operations. With a staff close to seven hundred people, ACTED Afghanistan implements projects from the emergency to the development phase and throughout the entire Northern region of the country. We ensure the continuity of our interventions through returnee reintegration, land allocation and emergency shelter reconstruction.

In 2008, ACTED responded to several emergencies ranging from drought to the lack of preparedness for winter among rural communities.

Rehabilitation efforts include help for returnees (Mazar), disaster preparedness (Baghlan), peaceful coexistence trainings, local governance initiatives, rapid rural project generation initiatives, and livelihood recovery programmes.

Development projects include microfinance, cultural promotion efforts and cooperation in the frame of the National Solidarity Programme (NSP). This nationwide project aiming at supporting local communities and local governance as well as IDP reintegration continue to form substantial part of ACTED activities and contribute to keeping the focus on supporting local governance through community mobilization and bringing the government to rural areas through training and capacity development.

In the future, ACTED in Afghanistan will tackle the resettlement and reintegration process of returnees, will launch a rural multisectoral development programme in Faryab, and will develop NSP activities in previously isolated areas in five provinces of Northern Afghanistan. ACTED is also organizing training programmes for civil servants in Faryab, Kunduz and Takhar.

ACTED’s advocacy in Afghanistan

For the past two years, ACTED has step up its advocacy efforts in Afghanistan, relying on its 15 years of continuous relief operations towards the Afghani population. ACTED represents other NSP Facilitating Partners in the Facilitating Partners Representative Group, and is very much involved in associations such as ACBAR (Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief) and HRRAC (The Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium) of which it is a member. ACTED is one of the elected NGO representatives on the Humanitarian Country Team, contributing to strategic level decision-making, coordination and joint advocacy on humanitarian issues. ACTED has also become increasingly active in various coordination clusters concentrating on issues like protection, water and sanitation, food security and agriculture. By making our voice heard we are ensuring that issues tackled by ACTED are brought to the attention of development community and that ACTED’s visibility corresponds to its fifteen years of experience in Afghanistan.