Prior to the Taliban takeover in August 2021, the World Food Programme (WFP) Afghanistan had been working to see how its strategic outcomes in the 2018–23 Country Strategic Plan (CSP) were aligned with viable peace and development efforts nationally, and to investigate plausible pathways by which its interventions could support broader goals to contribute to the humanitarian–development–peace (triple) nexus. With the Taliban regaining control, these pathways have become less clear and difficult for WFP to make firm strategies. This Theory of Change (TOC) document looks at each of the relevant strategic outcomes from the 2018 CSP in turn (temporarily rolled over as a result of the uncertainty) and proposes theoretical ways in which the interventions can be best aligned with medium- to longer-term goals. Whilst these can no longer be simplistically labelled ‘development’ and ‘peace’, preserving national systems and institutions remains vitally important to ensure minimum humanitarian suffering. The aim of developing these TOCs is to help best align current programming and develop future programming options, as well as better generating evidence on what works. The TOCs are also intended to be a bridge to the next CSP, generating evidence to inform future strategic outcomes and helping the organisation think through realistic contributions to national systems.
This paper examines the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus in a humanitarian context, with a specific focus on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). It highlights the complex and non-linear interactions that WASH has with other areas of the WEF nexus. In doing so, it blends the social dimensions (access, safety, consumption, and use) with the WEF resource dimensions (availability and resource sustainability), including a further emphasis on sanitation as a key, but often ignored, element of the WEF nexus. Drawing on the case of the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, we examine how household-level access to WASH shapes and is shaped by use, access, and availability of energy and food, and finally their effects on host–refugee interactions. We find that there are implicit and explicit links between WASH and WEF. Moreover, any small intervention in any of the WEF areas has positive knock-on effects on the other resources, especially in enhancing resource access and use. We conclude that bottom-up perspectives on these interlinkages with active participation from both host and refugee households are required to understand the implicit and explicit connections across WASH and the WEF nexus in humanitarian contexts. We also argue that sanitation is a key element of the WEF nexus and should not be ignored within the predominant resource-centric framing of the WEF.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has been a key humanitarian force in Afghanistan since 1963 and remains the largest agency in the Humanitarian Response Plan for Afghanistan. Whilst its focus has primarily been its humanitarian mandate, prior to the Taliban takeover, WFP had been working to see how its strategic outcomes in the 2018 Country Strategic Plan (CSP) were aligned with viable peace and development efforts nationally. The Taliban takeover has accelerated an already deteriorating humanitarian crisis. Drought in 2021 had left many in the west of the country in need of humanitarian assistance. The collapse of international support, and the freezing of the banking system and assets held overseas has exacerbated already very high levels of poverty and threatened the price of staples in the market. This has necessarily focused all external efforts on the humanitarian response. Despite the severity of the humanitarian situation, WFP is keen not to entirely neglect development and peace aspects, knowing that both are essential to the future of Afghanistan. This short note sets out the likely medium-term policy framework and some considerations for WFP in navigating this. This Policy Note should be read in conjunction with the longer document Theories of Change for WFP Afghanistan’s Contribution to the Triple Nexus: Final Report (Sida and Nelis 2022).
This paper draws on a series of events under the Afghanistan Strategic Learning Initiative (ASLI). The initiative has been convened with the support of the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub and the donor, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, in partnership with the Center for Global Development (CGD), Chatham House, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), ODI and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development-Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC). Between December 2021 and February 2022, ASLI convened four workshops led by each of the partner organisations in turn. The workshops brought together senior leaders, decision-makers, experts, researchers and practitioners to discuss what comes next for foreign aid in Afghanistan. The lead organisation for each workshop published an accompanying paper, of which this is one.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.