Afghanistan is highly prone to multiple natural disasters including earthquakes, landslides, flooding and avalanches. Earthquakes occur frequently, particularly in the mountainous north and north-eastern areas of the country, and often trigger landslides. Floods are common in the spring when snow begins to melt and rainfall is heavy. Many of the communities at risk are located in remote areas, and disaster relief efforts are made more difficult by the volatile security situation. The Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) - formerly Focus Humanitarian Assistance - has been active in Afghanistan since 1996, when it was set up to respond to the acute food shortages caused by the ongoing conflict.
Emergency Management teams train to respond to disasters while conducting hazard and risk assessments. They also work to improve risk anticipation through the establishment of Early Warning Systems. AKAH has so far trained tens of thousands of volunteers for disaster response and management across Central and South Asia.
The Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) gradually took on a larger role to facilitate development work in the border areas of the remote mountainous province of Badakhshan. Gradually, it expanded its mandate, and began to assist refugees and internally displaced people to resettle and re-establish their livelihoods through the provision of shelter and vocational training programmes.
From 2006, AKAH began to work on disaster risk reduction, and today the organisation works to strengthen community capacity to prepare for and respond to disasters, and works with the government at national and provincial level to enhance its capacity to assess, prepare for and respond to natural disasters in a timely and effective manner.
It has also supplied emergency food. In 2016, it delivered vital food supplies provided by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to 327 households in the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan, who have suffered severe food shortages during recent months. Villagers in the districts of Big and Small Pamirs, located in Afghanistan’s remote Badakhshan province, received the WFP food packages including wheat flour, vegetable oil, pulses, salt and high-energy biscuits - enough to feed the entire population of these districts for two months.
Since its establishment 20 years ago, the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) in coordination with the Government of Afghanistan, and other international organisations has responded to hundreds of incidents and natural disasters. Disaster preparedness is a key component of its work, and the organisation works on community-based preparedness projects to improve the capacity and coping mechanisms of communities to respond to natural disasters.
Through the years, AKAH has further strengthened its response capacity by establishing, training and equipping disaster response teams through working with focal points in villages and schools in the region. Over the last five years AKAH has responded to 121 incidents, and has assisted 46,491 individuals. Major accomplishments of AKAH in disaster response and preparedness include:
- Avalanche Preparedness: The AKAH team provided training on avalanche safety in 193 villages, distributing avalanche preparedness toolkits and reaching over 900 people. It also set up 17 weather monitoring posts, and trained 51 people on collecting weather monitoring data. This data is collected, and analysed by AKAH, who can then make predictions about the likelihood of avalanches occurring. Based on this avalanche warning messages were sent to 160 villages in 2015;
- Emergency Stockpiles: AKAH manages 28 emergency stockpiles, across five provinces of Afghanistan. These stockpiles can provide for 2,054 families in the most at-risk areas.
- Food for Work/Food for Assets: In partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP), AKAH has run this programme for the last three years, and in 2015 distributed 2,283 metric tonnes of food to 14,354 families in Badakhshan;
- Call Centre Facility: AKAH runs a 24 hour a day operation centre, which collects information from 350 villages on a daily basis, and complies a daily situation report, monitoring the occurrences of natural disasters, security incidences and local weather conditions. In order to set up this communications network, AKAH distributed communications equipment to 134 villages, set up 17 weather monitoring stations and trained 51 people in collecting data from these weather monitoring stations;
- Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs): Conducted capacity building trainings and established and equipped 461 CERTs bringing together a total of over 10,492 members (of which over 40% women), in four provinces, Samangan, Takhar, Badakhshan and Baghlan;
- Search and Rescue Team: AKAH has trained one Search and Rescue Team, in Faizabad, Badakhshan.
The Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) is a key response agency in the northern provinces of Afghanistan, and has strong technical expertise in disaster assessment. AKAH sends technical teams to conduct assessments after disasters, and shares these assessments with the government and other stakeholders. AKAH is able to respond effectively to small-scale disasters through emergency response teams that are established at the community level.
AKAH leverages its logistical capacity and institutional reach through the AKDN to distribute food and non-food items to affected communities, particularly in remote and inaccessible areas, on behalf of partner organisations. Examples of recent disaster responses include:
- Landslides, Argo, Badakhshan, 2014: AKAH formed part of the assessment team and responded to 700 families impacted by the landslide, providing them with food and non-food items.
- Avalanche, Parabir, February 2015: Avalanche season in 2015 was heavier than usual, and the Parabir avalanche alone in February destroyed nine houses and impacted 20 families. AKAH emergency response teams responded immediately to assist these families. During the 2015 avalanche season, AKAH responded to 270 families affected by the avalanches, and as a result of AKAH avalanche preparedness measures, 420 families (a total of 3,000 people) were evacuated to safe zones.
- Floods, July 2015: During the heavy flooding in Badakhshan, 185 homes were destroyed. AKAH disaster response teams provided assistance and non-food items to the affected families.
- Earthquake, Jurm, October 2015: A powerful earthquake measuring 7.5 magnitude struck Afghanistan on 26 October 2015. A total of 1,593 households were damaged and 1,277 households were destroyed. AKAH formed part of the assessment team and response team. In collaboration with United States Agency for International Development and Aga Khan Foundation USA, AKAHS provided relief and shelter to those affected by the earthquake.
