Focus on food assistance strategy

In the last two weeks, the UN World Food Programme and partner non-governmental organisations operating inside Afghanistan have agreed on a new wheat delivery system to ensure that food reaches isolated Afghan communities before winter. The new system will see commercial trucks from neighbouring countries bypass logistics hubs in urban centres and travel directly to affected districts, where NGO's will ensure onward distribution. However, while aid workers acknowledge the need for the change in strategy given the current security constraints, they report that it has also contributed to ruptures in the supply chain at a crucial time. Heather Hill, the spokeswoman for WFP in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, announced the strategy shift on Wednesday. She said the recent signing of agreements with 19 NGOs operating inside Afghanistan would enable deliveries direct to the vulnerable population. "We will be able to save time and assist more people," she said, adding that more contracts would be signed with other NGOs over the coming days. Stock ruptures in remote areas Hugh Fenton, the programme manager for the Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR) in western Afghanistan, told IRIN on Thursday that there had been a two-week hiatus in the delivery of food supplies to areas under his responsibility. "We have not received anything for the last two weeks," he said. The NGO is one of 19 that signed contracts with WFP to manage the onward shipment of food aid to vulnerable populations in the country. Prior to the reorganisation of the delivery system, over 1,000 mt, out of a total 6,000 mt required, had arrived for onward transportation by DACAAR. Fenton said they had been on target prior to the adoption of the new system, which was taking longer to implement than he had hoped. "The only way that I can motivate my staff to keep working in the field under these difficult conditions is to remind them that they're distributing food and saving lives. This aid is key to keeping motivation high," he said. Oxfam, involved in much of the onward distribution in the central highlands, had also experienced a similar disruption to supplies. Sam Barrattt, the Oxfam spokesman in Islamabad, told IRIN that existing food reserves in the region were very low. However, food deliveries had been coming in slowly. Of the 4,500 mt required for districts covered by Oxfam, 137 mt had been received so far, he said. Aid workers maintain that bypassing city hubs means food can go straight to vulnerable communities in remote areas which would be cut off in winter. With no warehousing involved, direct food deliveries were less exposed to the risk of looting and urban insecurity. Insecurity delays operations However, Fenton said the system did present some new operational difficulties. Given that communications inside Afghanistan were so poor, distributions in districts had to be planned two or three weeks in advance without knowledge of local needs or conditions. "There is fighting ongoing in parts of Badghis and Ghowr [provinces], and we have no way of knowing whether it will be safe in a specific area that far in advance," said Fenton, adding that, for the system to work effectively, the decision to proceed with the final delivery had to be delegated to staff in the field. Faced with huge shortfalls in food inside Afghanistan, Fenton said there was an accepted strategy among relief agencies to concentrate on ensuring that sufficient wheat reached vulnerable families before attempting to organise the transport of other foodstuffs, such as pulses and oils. "We believe that wheat is the priority right now. If we don't have the capacity to take much [food] in, then we need to at least take in enough wheat," said Fenton. DACAAR plans to distribute 200 kg of wheat per family, which is expected to last for six months. Any surplus of wheat could be sold to obtain other items by families themselves, although a surplus was looking unlikely at present, he said. Cash distributions, with the aim of stimulating the additional supply of foodstuffs by local traders, were not considered a viable alternative for remote parts of the country. Although the trading system was working well, pumping cash safely into remote villages would be very difficult, and local cash exchange systems only operated in the lower valleys, said Fenton. Khaled Mansour, the WFP spokesman, told IRIN on Friday that the agency was working hand in hand with NGOs to deliver food throughout Afghanistan from its stocks in the neighbouring countries. "But we still have problems with internal distributions. The reasons vary from one region to another, but they are due to local insecurity, a general breakdown in law and order, the lack of local trucks in some areas, and a shortage of fuel," he said. As with many agencies operating inside Afghanistan, DACAAR has experienced this at first hand. Fenton said the recent looting of DACAAR's offices and the lack of communications had been extremely disruptive. Recent television footage of a petrol tanker being hit by a bomb had made Afghan truckers fearful. "Every truck driver has seen that [footage] now. Two weeks ago they were happy to work, but they are getting more and more nervous. And we can't do anything to reassure them this won't happen to their truck," he said. Mansour did not think that the relief effort was meeting all the needs in the country yet. Direct deliveries have already started to Hazarajat in the central highlands, with 1,300 mt leaving the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, Peshawar, on Tuesday, he said. Similar levels of direct deliveries had been dispatched to Ghazni and Lowgar in the east and Faryab Province in the west. Airdrops likely in December "We are still grappling with internal distributions," Mansour said, adding that airdrops were looking more likely now if sufficient food could not be pre-positioned in the isolated Panjshir Valley, other highland districts in the northeast, and the central highlands. "If we cannot pre-position enough food by road in these areas, then indeed we will have to have airdrops," Mansour said. Planning for deliveries by air had almost been finalised. He said security assurances for safe air passage had to obtained, and ground staff would need to be mobilised to manage drop zones and distribute the wheat. Conventional drops, where low-flying aircraft would drop 50 kg bags in carefully planned drop zones, were preferred for reasons of accuracy and cost-effectiveness. "This is much better and targeted. Aid workers on the ground know the people who need food, and can arrange distributions," Mansour said. Airdrops would start as soon as the mountain passes were closed to road access, most probably in December. Although he was cautiously optimistic that food would reach the vulnerable in these areas, he warned that the situation inside the country was in flux and could change on a daily basis. Call for humanitarian response zones Meanwhile, Refugees International (RI) has called for the immediate establishment of humanitarian response zones inside the country. The proposed zones would be located in relatively secure areas in northern Afghanistan which have not been the target of US-led bombing attacks, and are close to large concentrations of vulnerable people. The RI recommendation comes in response to the serious concern expressed by the UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan, Antonio Donini, regarding the weakening of international relief efforts inside Afghanistan. An RI representative, Joel Charny, told IRIN on Friday that there was a need for a reinvigoration of the relief effort inside the country. "There is a humanitarian disaster and protection crisis happening inside the country," he said, adding that international attention had been diverted by a potential refugee influx into Pakistan, which might never materialise if the authorities keep the borders closed. "Our view is that more needs to be done - more risks need to be taken - by the international community, given the immense human suffering inside the country. Our basic concept is if you can strengthen the west and northeast areas, then we may start to have some traction in the face of this crisis," he said. RI has proposed that humanitarian response zones, staffed potentially by international relief workers and backed up by significant logistical support, could be established in relatively secure parts of northern Afghanistan and in the northeastern province of Badakhshan. The zones would consist of both safe corridors to transport relief goods from the borders of Afghanistan to internal logistic hubs where large quantities could be shipped and distributed to vulnerable areas. Charny said he was pleasantly surprised by the favourable response to the idea among some aid workers in the region, and added that RI was presenting the proposal to NGOs in the US this week.