FAO in Afghanistan

FAO Afghanistan awarded for work on the country’s water management systems

05/04/2019

Kabul, Afghanistan –The Ministry for Energy and Water (MEW) presented the FAO Representation Office in Afghanistan with an award for its “excellent work in developing and managing the water sector in Afghanistan.”

The award was presented to the FAO Country Representative Rajendra Aryal by the Acting MEW Minister, Mohammad Gul Khulmi, and Deputy Minister Khan Mohammad Takal, on the second day of the National Water Conference on Water Resources Development and Management. The conference examined recent achievements by the government and other stakeholders in water management.

This water management conference was the fifth annual such conference.  Each year since its inception, the conference provides a platform for discussing progress and continuing needs in the water sector in Afghanistan. It brings together scientists, policy makers, engineers, civil society actors, Islamic scholars and social scientists involved with the water sector and its sustainable development and management.

This year, the conference began with a set of keynote speeches, including one from the Chief Executive Officer of Afghanistan, H.E. Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the Acting MEW Minister, Mohammad Gul Khulmi and the Deputy Director General of Policy at the National Environmental Protection Agency, Mr. Idrees Malyar.  Keynote speeches noted the progress that had been made rehabilitating and extending canals, and improving on farm water management. However, the bigger focus of these talks was on future needs: droughts, like the one of 2018 were going to become more frequent, climate change was making water availability more unpredictable, and aquifers, like those under the city of Kabul, are becoming dangerously depleted due to poor water use and growing populations.

Upon receiving the award, the Mr. Aryal thanked the Ministry on behalf of all of FAO Afghanistan, and especially the water sector staff. He acknowledged that improved water resources management and water storage capacity continue to play a central role in the economic growth of the country and eradication of poverty. “Because of climate change and its severe heat and drought impacts on Afghanistan, the water sector needs a lot of attention – more than at any other time,” Mr. Aryal said. “FAO is focused on expanding and diversifying its’ work in this area in the future, in close collaboration with the Government of Afghanistan, donors and other relevant stakeholders.”

Water sector development in the past 20 years has focused most heavily on river bank protections, rehabilitating and adding canal infrastructure, and building and rehabilitating small and large dams. However, those in the water sector know that due to climate change and a burgeoning population, water sector efforts will have to both diversify and rapidly speed up. Recently opened and ongoing FAO irrigation projects are trying some of these diversified techniques, including land channeling to effectively capture surface water, timed and drip irrigation systems on farms to minimize water use, and water collection ponds and storage tanks.  FAO Afghanistan is also planning future projects that focus on whole watershed management in order to more effectively use funds and build synergies between activities. 

In the near future, aquifer replenishment, in places like Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and other large urban centers will be an issue that needs to be tackled by FAO and its’ partners in the water sector. New technologies that can literally pull water out of the air have been showing promise in other desert countries and may be useful for Afghanistan as well. However, no matter what methods are used, it is clear that Afghanistan faces some very dry decades ahead unless water management is prioritized by all those invested in Afghanistan’s future.