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Summary:
Heavy and continuous rainfall since 24 April caused flooding, flash floods and landslides subsequently in northern Afghanistan. On 9 May, CHF 289,201 was allocated from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) in delivering immediate assistance to about 2,500 families (17,500 beneficiaries). On 10 May, an Emergency Plan of Action (EPoA) for this DREF operation was issued. The support provided by this DREF operation is being delivered through seven ARCS provincial branches across three regions. It is focused on shelter and settlement recovery, nonfood items (NFI), health and hygiene promotion, water and sanitation (WatSan) actions.
Through the mobile health teams (MHT) and community based volunteers, the ARCS was able to support the affected communities with basic medical and hygiene promotion and psychosocial support services. The five MHT’s that were deployed for initial response provided health services in the four provinces of Jawzjan, Faryab, Baghlan and Badakhshan. They delivered essential health services to flood and landslide affected communities. 3,000 hygiene kits, 1,500 mosquito nets, three WatSan-2 kits and 500 water filters were distributed in the north and northeast regions. A total of 11,613 people directly benefited from these NFI distributions.
CBHFA Provincial Trainers and volunteers were trained on integrated PSS, ECV and HHWTS refresher training. Most of the trained volunteers were involved in conducting the initial rapid assessment, relief distribution and health and hygiene awareness session with support of the MHTs in the initial emergency phase. These volunteers will be mobilized to support future emergency response activities in the Northern provinces which are frequently affected by annual seasonal flooding of the country. In addition, the 2500 PSS kits for children were procured and prepositioned in the affected areas for future emergencies.
NFI distributions were completed by the end of June, despite challenging security conditions. Throughout August, IFRC was working with ARCS to obtain finalised distribution figures in order to carry out replenishment procurement for the distributed items. Copies of beneficiary lists were also requested as a means of verification. While the finalised distribution figures were provided by ARCS in August, the completed beneficiary lists were only received on the last week of September.
While this operation was initially planned to end by 9 October 2014, and was later extended to 9 November 2014, there is now a need to extend it further in order to complete the procurement activities. The late submission of beneficiary lists eventually further delayed the overall implementation of the operation. This impacted the procurement process for the replenishment of NFIs, which was only officially initiated in October 2014. Accurate logistics requisitions could only be submitted once documentation from ARCS branches (local warehouse stocks and distribution reports) had been compiled and analysed.
Quotations prepared on the basis of these requisitions, which were received only by the second half of October: due to technical, logistical and security constraints delaying and prolonging the international procurement process, delivery and final payment of several consignments were completed later than expected. As of 9 February 2015 the procurement process for cases had been completed with the support of IFRC Asia Pacific Zone Logistics Unit to Afghanistan via Pakistan. At this point all the procured items were delivered and handed over to the ARCS logistics department. Final payments for all consignments, including the hygiene kits, have been completed and processed.
Following the completion of all planned activities of the operation, the unspent balance of CHF 15,456 will be returned to the DREF pot.