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Environment and Energy

Environment and Energy for Sustainable Development

Afghanistan’s environment is under great pressure. The decades of conflict, on-going instability, overall poverty, prolonged droughts and susceptibility to other natural hazards, population increase and influx of displaced and returning population –have all exacted a heavy toll on the environment and natural resource base of the country.

Over 70% of the Afghan population lives in rural areas practicing agricultural and related rural activities that rely heavily on use of natural resources. Although estimates vary, of Afghanistan’s some 650,000-km2 land-locked territory, only 12% is arable and 4-5% irrigated, while 7% is rain-fed and cropped opportunistically. 45% is rangeland under permanent pastures,1 less than 1.5% under forest cover,2 with the remaining 39% being mountainous. The UN Common Country Assessment (CCA) in 2004 found that, agriculture, not including poppy cultivation, generates about 40% of the GDP and employs about 70% of the labour force and is the major source of livelihoods in the country.

The degradation of the natural resource base directly and severely impacts the livelihood of the majority of the Afghan population as well as the country’s economic development as a whole. For instance, poor, uncoordinated management and excessive extraction of water for agriculture purposes, combined with long years of drought, has led to drastic declines in water flows in the Helmand River and 99% desiccation of its downstream Sistan wetlands, which is an important source of agricultural production.3

Afghanistan is home to globally significant wildlife species (such as Marco Polo and snow leopard) as well as landscapes (such as Band-i-Amir and Wakhan Corridor). Also as the water tower of the region hosting headwaters of some of the significant transboundary water bodies (such as the Sistan and Amu Darya basins), the country also holds a key to the future of the regional environment. With the country’s water resources largely dependent on the snow melt originating from ice caps and glaciers in the high mountains, and a large portion of the territory being arid and non-arable, the impact of global climate change is believed to draw negative impacts the sustainability of already scarce resources in Afghanistan. The lack of data, the nascent stage of state building and insufficient institutional capacity in the environment sector leaves the country relatively behind in the global climate debate, adaptation and mitigation measures, while climate change will certainly not exempt Afghanistan from being impacted.

The Government of Afghanistan fully recognises that failure to address environmental challenges will negatively affect the long-term growth of the country as well as meeting the country’s MDGs. The upcoming ANDS recognises environment as a major cross-cutting issue with ramifications for addressing it within a multi-sectoral, multi-coordinated approach. In recent years Afghanistan has also started dialogue with neighbouring countries on sustainable management of transboundary natural resources, and has started active participation in Multilateral Environmental Agreements.

In support of the Government of Afghanistan, UNDP aims to contribute to the establishment of sustainable development framework in the country by ensuring environmental concerns are fully taken into consideration in the course of the country’s development. UNDP’s Energy and Environment (E&E) portfolio in Afghanistan, for this purpose, currently focuses on the institutional and capacity development of relevant government agencies – particularly the National Environment Protection Agency (NEPA), Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MoAIL) as well as the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD). Working closely with these authorities as well as other UN partners, UNDP Afghanistan also works on environmental mainstreaming at the national and sub-national level planning, public awareness building and piloting community-based energy and environmental projects for lessons learned and future scaling up. Drawing upon its global mandate, network and experience, UNDP also supports the government’s efforts to address transboundary water management and other global environmental issues, as well as promotion of environmental financing for Afghanistan.

For the past two years UNDP has been an active partner in the Greening Afghanistan Initiative (GAIN), a UN Joint Programme implemented by several UN agencies including UNEP, FAO, WFP and UNOPS, with the objectives of improving government capacity on environmental management, providing alternative and environmentally sustainable livelihood options to selected communities, and promoting environmental awareness building and education. Under the GAIN framework, UNDP has been implementing the “Environmental Awareness Raising & Capacity Building” Project, mainly targeting four provinces in north Afghanistan: Balkh, Saripul, Samangan and Jawzjan. The project so far has established 40 Village Environment Committees and over 70 Green Generation Clubs at school as community- and youth-based carriers of environmental messages and actions, and the recipients of the awareness raising campaign include 80 schools with over 100,000 school boys and girls, 160 provincial government officials and over 2,000 rural women.

On the energy front, the Energy for Rural Development Afghanistan (ERDA) sub-component has been initiated under UNDP/MRRD’s NABDP, with specific objectives of government and community capacity development, policy review and piloting demonstration projects on rural & renewable energy. This is an example of strengthening poverty-environment linkage within UNDP’s own programmes - the complementarity of the rural energy project with the work of NABDP / MRRD is evident from the fact that provision of sustainable energy in rural areas is a major challenge in comprehensive rural development of Afghanistan, with direct livelihood and environmental implications. The ERDA team is being established and the project activities are to take off in 2008.

A number of E&E programmes and projects are also in pipeline with support from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) as well as the newly established UNDP-Spain MDG Achievement Fund. These include: Small Grants Programme to support the activities of local NGOs and CBOs to protect global significant biodiversity; “Capacity Building for Sustainable Land Management in Afghanistan” Programme to increase the government’s capacity in effectively managing the country’s valuable and fragile natural resources base; and “Strengthened Approach for the Integration of Sustainable Environmental Management in Afghanistan” – a new UN Joint Programme with FAO and UNEP, in partnership with NEPA, MoAIL, and MRRD. All these programmes are expected to start in full swing in 2008.

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• Sustainable Environment Management