The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is undertaking a study on strengthening principled humanitarian response capacities with research input from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Donors and humanitarian actors have committed themselves to providing humanitarian aid in accordance with the following principles, which are enshrined in the Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD) principles and the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief:

Key messages

• Malnutrition is caused by inadequate dietary intake and disease, which in turn are caused by food insecurity, inadequate care and a poor health environment. In theory, cash transfers in emergency and transitional settings could address most if not all causes of malnutrition. However, attributing changes in nutritional status to interventions, including those using cash transfers, is extremely difficult.

MAPA TO BOOST AFGHAN ECONOMY THROUGH AYNAK MINE CLEARANCE

An independent countrywide survey of 7,278 adult Afghans reveals that 81 percent respect the police.

Kabul, 31 st January 2012 – The Ministry of Interior (MOI) today released the third-annual independent Police Perception Survey showing that many key gauges of views of the police have advanced over the past three years and others that have been broadly positive remain so.

By Michael Georgy

ISLAMABAD, Feb 1 (Reuters) - More than $1 billion in international aid is needed to ensure that conditions are right for millions of Afghan refugees to return to their troubled homeland, the senior U.N. official for refugees said on Wednesday.

"I think there are problems of governance, there are problems of economic development, there are problems of security," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told Reuters in an interview.

AGRICULTURE

Kabul, Afghanistan. In response to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology alleged medicine contamination, the Ministry of Public Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) want to reassure the Afghan public that this incident is limited to a batch only distributed at the institute. According to WHO these batches of medicines were not distributed outside of Lahore or in any other countries. Therefore there is no need for alarm.

A. Executive Summary

The Afghan National Police (ANP) is making significant strides in public support, gaining greater confidence, respect and regard from Afghan citizens during the past year. But sharp regional differences mark the challenges ahead, as do reports of police corruption, misbehaviour and mistreatment of ordinary Afghans – although progress has been recorded in these areas as well.

Recent snowfall and below-normal temperatures in higher elevations alleviated concerns of short-term dryness in Afghanistan

Key Messages

• Early seasonal rainfall in October and November created good winter wheat sowing conditions. However, dry conditions prevailed over the central Afghanistan from mid-December to mid-January, increasing worries of a second underperforming wet season. Nonetheless, heavy precipitation that was received in late January filled deficits.