In response to increased food insecurity due to floods, USAID’s Food for Peace (FFP) office approved a ten month emergency food security program to help the 3,000 most vulnerable and food insecure families affected by the 2010 floods in the Lal Sarjangal District of Ghor Province. This program will ensure that these vulnerable families have access to food from December 2010 through July 2011.
The program will provide access to staple food items to meet the basic household food needs and improve the immediate food security of the flood-affected households. The program is innovative in that the staple food items will be procured locally from Afghan traders and merchants, rather than procured from the United States. This local procurement should also help to strengthen local and regional markets.
The program started in December 2010, in the central highlands of Afghanistan in Lal Sarjangal District. It is one of the most remote, isolated, and neglected districts of Ghor, one of Afghanistan’s poorest provinces. More than half of its population lives below the national poverty level.
USAID will provide $980,307 in grant funds instead of the usual U.S. grown food commodities to Catholic Relief Services for program implementation.