Helping the Afghan people through their livestock fghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with 36% of the population below the poverty line. Of the 35.5 million Afghans, about 24 million are living in the countryside, being more or less dependent on agriculture and livestock.
Address:
Street # 5 of Syloo, House # 152-153, District 3, Kabul, Afghanistan
With the current precarious situation in Afghanistan, DCA focuses on community managed disaster risk reduction (CMDRR) to address the disaster faced by farmers, pastoralists, internally displaced people, and host communities in a sustainable manner. This includes but is not limited to feed distribution and engagement to start up community-based feed banks; free and subsidized livestock health and vaccination; institutional capacity building; market systems development and value chains. DCA builds resilience through a quick access and reach to the communities through the previously set private sectors (VFUs), Self-Help Groups (SHG), Basic Veterinary Workers (BVW) and customary institutions in the field. Gender equality is a fundamental guiding principle in our own organisation as well as in our programs. By using a woman-to-woman approach and developing special income generating activities for female beneficiaries, DCA is committed to empower women in all its projects. DCA adopts a multidisciplinary One Health Approach, to attain optimal health for people and animals as well as the environment. The control of zoonoses, animal diseases that can easily be transmitted to humans (such as COVID-19), are important elements of our work.
2017 TO JULY 2021
DCA Livestock Programs
Being founded as a veterinary organisation, during the years ...
Being founded as a veterinary organisation, during the years DCA became more and more engaged in livestock extension as well as in livestock value chains. In addition, the donor requirements changed. Now the focus is increasingly more on business development and job creation. These developments made DCA decide to change its focus and its scope from a veterinary organisation carrying out veterinary projects to a livestock organisation implementing a wider range of projects related to animal production. This new profile asked for a new name: since 2017 DCA-VET is called DCA Livestock Programs. In the coming years, the focus of DCA Livestock Programs will be on establishing farmer extension and business groups with special attention on the empowerment of women, linking farmers in the value chain to providers and traders, and supporting the public-private partnership in the delivery of veterinary services.
2014 – 2016
Continuing after the critical Time
2014 was a turbulent year for Afghanistan: ISAF troops ...
DCA-VET is covering almost all provinces in Afghanistan now, including the Southern provinces. To serve the Southern area, in 2014 a new office and training centre was established in Kandahar. In the new projects, a lot of emphasis is placed upon development of value chains. Through increased production, improved harvesting of animal products and linking farmers to traders and markets, value is added to animal products. Milk, cashmere, wool, pelts, eggs, and meat are examples of value chain products that DCA-VET is working with to help farmers to improve their income.
2007 – 2013
Towards sustainability
In January 2007, a new USAID funded project started as a follow-up of ...
In all DCA-VET projects, covering provinces from Farah to Badakhshan, the objective of reaching sustainability is now one of the major topics. To improve the sustainability of the VFUs, the staff are trained in business skills and in additional services, like cashmere harvesting, artificial insemination, and animal nutrition. At the same time, extension campaigns are launched in order to increase the farmers’ awareness of the benefits the VFU services can offer them and to train them in best practices of animal husbandry. Male as well as female groups are formed for developing feed banks and establishing value chains for animal products. To consolidate sustainability of the veterinary program, DCA-VET has privatised the import and distribution of veterinary vaccines and medicines. To this aim, in 2011 VetServ was established. This being a commercial company selling quality veterinary drugs and equipment to the Veterinary Field Units, and other organisations. Another important element in the process towards sustainability of the veterinary system is the growing role of the Afghan government. The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock is now involved in the coordination of many of the veterinary projects. Public-private partnership is enhanced by the linking of VFUs with MAIL through the Sanitary Mandate Contracting Scheme.
2004 – 2006
Great changes
2004 was a historical year for Afghanistan: Hamid Karzai was ...
2004 was a historical year not only for Afghanistan, but also for DCA-VET. USAID granted a 10 million dollar project to DCA-VET, the Rebuilding Agricultural Market Program, in short the RAMP-project. An important focus of the RAMP-project was to provide the VFU staff with the tools they needed to generate their own income and thus become independent of international aid. During the RAMP-project, the number of VFU locations rose from 100 to around 400, and the number of VFU staff doubled from about 300 to 600. Large quantities of vaccines and medicines were provided, and a comprehensive cold chain system was put in place. From January 2004 through June 2006, the VFU staff performed 18.5 million vaccinations, in addition 9.5 million medications were administered. When the RAMP-project came to an end, DCA-VET covered the period in between as much as possible from its own core funds. This enabled the 290 VFU staff supported by DCA-VET to carry on their work at more or less the same level as during the RAMP-period. In 2006, a completely new element was added to the veterinary program of DCA-VET: a dairy factory was constructed. Funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DCA-VET rebuilt the Swiss cheese factory in Baghlan. The aim of this project was to improve local food security by offering the farmers an outlet for their surplus of milk. Some 300 farmers sell their milk to this Baghlan Dairy Factory, that was first meant to be a cheese factory, but is now producing mainly yoghurt.
1995 – 2003
From East to NorthWest
Up to 1995, DCA worked mainly from Pakistan. For logistical reasons, ...
In this period, DCA-VET started the distribution of vaccines to the veterinary field units, funded by the EU. The organisation also built its second Afghan training centre in Charikar. After the defeat of the Taliban in 2002, DCA-VET moved its main office from Peshawar to Kabul (becoming the National Headquarters). As the frontline of the advancing Taliban was located nearby, the training activities then had to move to Kabul. Notwithstanding the Taliban rule over the country from 1995 to 2001, DCA-VET managed to operate two training centres, and to gradually expand its VFU program. Tragically, DCA-VET lost its Afghan Project Manager, Dr Sayed Najibullah Hossaini, being abducted by the Taliban in 1999.
1979 – 1994
From DCA to DCA-VET
At the end of 1979, the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan and within ...
Initially, DCA provided general humanitarian aid to the Afghan people. But from the late 1980s onwards, the focus changed to veterinary activities as a way to help the Afghan population. In 1988, DCA established her first veterinary training centre in Peshawar, Pakistan. Afghanistan itself was still too dangerous for foreign aid organisations to intervene. In Peshawar, DCA trained Afghans that were recruited from target provinces in Afghanistan as para-veterinarians (paravets). After a veterinary training of 5 months, these paravets returned to Afghanistan and established small veterinary field units in their home villages. In 1994, the changed focus of DCA towards veterinary relief activities was formalised by the official foundation of DCA-VET (Dutch Committee for Afghanistan – Veterinary Programmes), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that focuses explicitly on veterinary programs. The same year, the first DCA-VET veterinary training centre in Afghanistan was opened in Herat
