UNODC GLO.ACT Project, 22 December 2022 to 31 January 2024

The humanitarian response plan of 2022 featured many destitute families resorted to a negative coping strategies due to the complex emergency situation. Selling household assets and children, multiple displacement, organ removal and exhaustion of all coping mechanisms due to poverty is already happening as evident in confidential reports from the field and from the news media. Quite a number of the population are at a high risk of human trafficking and migrant smuggling, compromising the lives of women and children. This is aggravated by the Ukraine-Russia war that led to rising of food and fuel prices, the ripple effects of COVID-19 outbreak and banning of poppy production by the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan,. Counter-trafficking and smuggling requires immediate, medium-term, and long-term responses to ensure victims are protected. To address the root causes of trafficking in person and smuggling of migrants, DCA’s response in partnership with UNODC is mainly in improving the livelihoods through agricultural interventions and awareness raising to reduce the fundamental causes of vulnerability. About 541 male and female farmers receive improved maize seeds and fertilizers, and 1,000 male and female farmers receive awareness. This helps to reduce the escalating food insecurity, price rise, human trafficking, and migrant smuggling as well as used as an alternative to poppy production. Such initiatives need to be further expanded to provide a better access to food, alternative livelihoods, market opportunities and awareness to reduce human trafficking and smuggling. Through the GLO.ACT Project of UNODC, DCA will implement a project in Kandhar and Helmand with 2 outputs. Output 1: Improved productivity of maize to 541 households in Kandahar and Helmand through distribution of high-quality maize seeds and fertilizers. Output 2: Awareness of 1,000 households on counter Trafficking in Persons (TIP), Smuggling of Migrants (SOM) and its consequences maximized. DCA will use its offices in Kabul, Kandahar and Helmand and continue to maintain cost-efficiency while running offices and staff. The project staff includes male and female project manager, field facilitators, advisers, finance and admin team, monitoring, evaluation and knowledge management, community mobilizers and extension officers. DCA will use the opportunity of UNODC staff in building the capacities of our team members on awareness raising on trafficking and smuggling. DCA has already established program-based Knowledge Management (KM) and MEAL process to strengthen its research and development strategy set within the strategic plan. KM and MEAL officers, assistant and Project MEAL Officers work together along with the project and program management team to collect, collate, analyze and interpret project data. The project will work with stakeholders and transition gradually from phasing down to phasing out based on the outcomes achieved and risk factors including crises that are beyond the control of DCA. The project strengthens access to local resources, capacity building and motivation to the stakeholders, as well as linkages with government, CDCs, DDAs, customary institutions and the private sector as a strategy to sustain outcomes/ impacts and exits. The market linkages and partnership with the private sector are the strategies to ensure the sustainability of the project. Using a sustainable approach for the livelihoods system and strengthening resilience through the market systems means there is involvement of institutions (formal and informal), structures, and processes to transform the communities’ well-being to the next stride.