Afghanistan | FAO supports agriculture-based livelihoods to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19

FAO in Afghanistan is implementing two COVID-19 emergency response projects to mitigate the potential adverse impacts of COVID-19 on vulnerable herders, farmers, women-headed households, and agricultural and livestock markets. The projects apply COVID-19 safety measures in their activities, sensitize stakeholders on the risks of COVID-19 and on safety measures, distribute COVID-19 personal protective equipment and disinfect agricultural and livestock markets. Importantly, the projects have also dewormed livestock ahead of transhumance and distributed certified and quality tested wheat seed and fertilizers. These images capture the COVID-19 response work in Kandahar, Herat and Mazar provinces.

Through these projects FAO in Afghanistan has helped generate robust evidence and analytics on the impacts of COVID-19 on food security and on the agriculture sector, including agricultural markets. The project also supported the formulation of contingency plans at the sub-national level on COVID-19-safe transhumance for herders and COVID-19-safe functioning of agricultural and livestock markets.

The projects include:

OSRO/AFG/005/GER: “Minimizing potential Impacts of COVID-19 on agriculture-based livelihoods of vulnerable and food-insecure households through anticipatory actions in Afghanistan” and

OSRO/GLO/017/CHA: “Safeguarding food systems and agriculture-based livelihoods while reducing transmission of COVID-19 in high-risk areas of Afghanistan, "part of a global project entitled, “Preventing and responding to the impact of COVID 19 outbreak on food security.”