Medair helps families bridge the food gap and rebuild their communities after devastating flash floods destroyed their harvest.

In the summer of 2010, the worst flash floods in 50 years struck some of the most remote communities in Afghanistan’s Bamyan province. “The flood was taller than the trees,” said Sayed Rahin, 30, in the village of Kadalac. “The power of the water was incredible.”

Work on canal helps residents recover from flood damage

23 October 2011 | Badghis, Afghanistan

Snowmelt and rain swell the Murghab River in the months of April, May, and June, raising the water velocity to three times its normally placid rate. These surges, capable of filling an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 23 seconds, help neighboring Turkmenistan provide local power along the river valley border with Afghanistan. However, in northern Badghis Province, the same floodwaters overrun fragile canals, stripping topsoil from farmland and devastating crops.

Key Messages

In recent months, wheat prices have shown a downward trend in some major markets such as Kabul and Heart, although remain at very high levels. Prices sharply increased in Kandahar. Nominal rice price may soon approach the level observed in 2008.

Food security conditions are likely to improve thanks to good 2011 main harvest prospects; however conflict affected areas are expected to suffer from food insecurity.

Why we work in Pakistan

38 million people in Pakistan (one in four) live in poverty on £1 a day or less. Pakistan has 17 million out-of-school children. Half of all adults, including two out of every three women, can’t read or write. One in ten children die before their fifth birthday, and 14,000 women die in childbirth every year.

In brief

Programme purpose:

- Reduced the number of deaths, injuries and impact from disasters.

- To improve the health status of vulnerable people in selected areas of high health vulnerability, to reduce the number of deaths, illness and impact from diseases and public health emergencies.

- Increase local community, civil society and Red Cross Red Crescent capacity to address the most urgent situations of vulnerability.

- To strengthen the Afghan Red Crescent

In brief

Programme purpose: The aim of the International Federation is to coordinate and support efforts at country and regional level to assist South Asian National Societies to scale up their work to improve the lives of vulnerable people.

Programme summary: The regional disaster management (DM) programme focused on meeting challenges arising from vulnerabilities and risks of re-occurring disasters in South Asia. It continued to scale up DM/disaster risk reduction (DRR) approaches to improve quality of the

This report offers international agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the U.S. government, the media, and the public an overview of the humanitarian and development assistance being provided to the people of Afghanistan by InterAction member agencies.

The 22 member organizations that submitted information for this report are conducting relief and development operations in Afghanistan. Various issues are addressed in their programs, including agriculture and food security, shelter, gender, water and sanitation, health

h On October 23, an armed group attacked the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan located in the U.N. compound in the western city of Herat, killing two Afghan security officers. The U.N. Department of Safety and Security reported a 133 percent increase in security incidents directly affecting U.N. agencies in September 2010, compared to September 2009. A trend analysis of attacks against civilians and humanitarian agencies indicates that conflict has spread to traditionally calm regions in northwestern and western Afghanistan, further impeding