CARE Afghanistan focuses on food security and climate change to enhance the resilience of households to improve their health and livelihoods, and reduce poverty at household and community levels to enable them to cope with the shocks and consequences of climate change, such as drought. Through food security and resilient climate change interventions, CARE Afghanistan aims to improve the human condition and sustain the social and economic position of vulnerable and marginalized households with a greater focus on women.

The main objectives of climate change resilient programming in CARE Afghanistan are to:

  1. Strengthen the resilience of communities and their ability to better cope with recurring disasters and shocks.
  2. Enhance rural communities’ capacity for sustainable livelihood and inclusive representation, and participation in local governance.

CARE Afghanistan’s work in this domain builds on more than 10 years of experience in: community-level development and governance; disaster-risk management with internally displaced populations; community-led savings groups and village savings and loan associations linked to vocational and skills training, food security assets and extensions services; food security, particularly agriculture and livestock husbandry with a focus on women’s economic empowerment; and more.

A significant lesson for CARE Afghanistan has been that resilience programing must encompass emergency preparedness, response and recovery linked to longer-term economic empowerment, and food and nutrition security. A second lesson has been the importance of strong coordination and acceptance across Ministries and the formation of strategic partnership relations that facilitate advocacy. Future work will continue to expand on community-based savings groups and village savings and loans associations; expand collaboration with civil society organizations and common interest groups; draw on community scorecards to promote a ‘citizen charter’ / social audit mindset; and explore opportunities for urban-based resilience programming.