Afghanistan – Alternative Development Program/North (ADP/N)

Creating New & Expanded Opportunities for Licit Livelihoods

Working with a PADCO-led team in Afghanistan, ACDI/VOCA supports the planning, design and implementation of the four-year, $59.9 million Alternative Development Program/North (ADP/N). ACDI/VOCA’s activities accelerate broad-based, sustainable regional economic development in order to provide new and expanded opportunities for licit livelihoods. Facilitating a business environment is critical for the sustainable growth of entrepreneurship and commerce.

ADP/N promotes small and medium-sized business clusters in manufacturing, skilled crafts, natural resource-based industry, agribusiness and service enterprises. Improving natural resource management is also critical and is approached within the context of agricultural development, particularly the production of competitive agricultural products. ADP/N supports communities through the introduction and use of improved farming technologies and inputs, value-adding technologies and market information for increased income.

ACDI/VOCA has been instrumental in its work with the ADP/N team. Recent achievements include:

• distributing wheat seed and fertilizer for the 2007 harvest to 14,000 farmers
• preparing to distribute vegetable seed to 20,000 additional farmers
• building a 25 MT underground storage unit for one of the local cooperatives
• creating large vegetable and livestock demonstration/training programs
• developing fruit nurseries through the Roots of Peace program to provide orchard management training and 6,500 imported fruit trees for the development of small commercial-sized orchards to help in the training program

Past ADP/N results include:

• completing a comprehensive animal disease study in 10 districts that will result in follow-up activities, such as training veterinary staff, improving access to animal vaccinations and drugs and renovating and restocking a provincial veterinary clinic to serve local livestock farmers
• testing and distributing four improved wheat seed varieties along with fertilizer kits among 22,089 beneficiary farmers
• implementing an emergency irrigation project to provide immediate access to emergency irrigation water to 11 irrigation channels in four districts, benefiting approximately 3,000 farm families and irrigating almost 2,500 acres
• training 15,000 farmers in irrigation canal use, repair and maintenance and assisting in linking their fields to the newly repaired canals
• promoting the growth of alternative crops and launching vegetable trial plots as a potential for second short-season crops

Other projects that are being developed include:

• developing training-of-trainers seminars for provincial agriculture extension representatives and progressive farmers at the new agriculture extension facility
• establishing fruit, nut and forestry nurseries to improve fruit and nut production, reforestation and watershed management
• providing hands-on training in irrigation canal use, repair and maintenance
• facilitating a regional economic development council to spearhead area-based economic development activities on behalf of the public and private sectors

For more information, contact Lindsey Jones at ljones@acdivoca.org.

Updated: 10/07

PDF version of profile (984 KB)