- Diagnosis of the horticultural sector in the provinces of Kunar and Laghman for the NGO MADERA (June - July 2007) :
The French NGO, MADERA, is currently implementing the Perennial Horticulture Development Project, which aims to develop perennial horticulture in the provinces of Kunar and Lagham. In order to establish a more detailed diagnosis of the horticultural sector, MADERA asked Groupe URD to carry out a needs analysis amongst horticulturalists who were interested in the creation of farmers’ associations (8 districts in 2 provinces). The study was unusual as it mixed technical data and elements based on the practices and perceptions of the horticulturalists (social approach).
The study involved collecting data about commercial fruit production, the main problems facing the horticulturalists, existing coordination mechanisms between farmers and potential interest in taking part in the PHDP.

- Study of the causes and consequences of chronic poverty amongst women in Afghanistan (Herat, Badakshan, Bamyan, Nangahar, Kabul) for JICA / GTZ / MOWA (March – December 2007):
Since the Taliban regime fell, the international community has invested heavily in the issue of gender, making it one of the main pillars of the country’s reconstruction. The section of the Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS) which concerns social protection has as one of its objectives to reduce the extreme poverty which still affects a large proportion of the Afghan population: “The government’s goal is to increase the capacities, opportunities and security of extremely poor and vulnerable Afghans through a process of economic empowerment in order to reduce poverty and increase self-reliance.” The ANDS also stipulates that women’s extreme poverty is a priority.
The Afghan Compact, which fixes and quantifies the objectives to be reached by 2010, states that, “By Jaddi 1389 (end-2010), the number of female-headed households that are chronically poor will be reduced by 20%, and their employment rates will be increased by 20%.”
Groupe URD was asked by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA), and two donors who are very involved in gender issues in Afghanistan (JICA and GTZ) to carry out research into the factors which push women into a situation of chronic poverty and keep them there. A series of individual and collective interviews was carried out with women and men in a number of Afghan provinces. The aim of the project was to draw up a number of recommendations for programmes which would tackle chronic poverty amongst women in Afghanistan. Several questions were analysed: How is chronic poverty amongst women in Afghanistan defined? Who are the female heads of household? Are all female heads of household chronically poor? A typology of women’s poverty was developed and a number of recommendations were made concerning the implementation of suitable programmes. The results of this project are not available to the general public for the time being.

- Study of poppy cultivation in the province of Badakshan for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (December 2007 – January 2008):
More than 90% of the total global production of opium and heroin currently takes place in Afghanistan (UNODC study, 2007). The amount of land used to grow poppies illegally in Afganistan has been growing constantly since the fall of the Taliban. In 2007 it grew by 17% to 476 900 acres. The revenue generated by exporting opium to neighbouring countries represents 4 million dollars, which is more than half of Afghanistan’s GDP. Reducing the amount of opium poppies being cultivated will demand constant effort on the part of both national and international actors who will have to progressively implement a strategy to eliminate this illicit production. Several approaches have been tested to reduce production (crop eradication, alternative crops, buying the poppies from the farmers…), but, so far, none have been successful.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, is in the process of redefining its strategy towards the cultivation of poppies by implementing a global programme which includes the government and security and development programmes.
UNODC asked Groupe URD to carry out an evaluation in the province of Badakhshan, in order to identify the most pressing needs of vulnerable farmers who are involved or could become involved in poppy cultivation, and to make operational recommendations for a partnership between UNODC and the WFP. The evaluation focused particularly on the potential impact that food aid could have on opium production.
Individual and collective interviews were carried out in a large number of households in order to analyse the constraints poppy cultivators have to deal with, the strategies that they adopt, the main factors which lead farmers to cultivate opium poppies and the conditions which would be necessary for them to stop or to never start.
The priority needs of the target groups were identified via qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results of this research are not available to the general public for the time being.

- Urban study of the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in the province of Balkh (January – March 2008):
Groupe URD is in the process of conducting research into how the situation in Mazar-e-Sharif has evolved since the beginning of the reconstruction process.
Mazar-e-Sharif is a major city in northern Afghanistan. From Kabul, it is reached by crossing the Hindukush mountains via the Salang Tunnel, which was opened under the Soviet Union in the 1960s to open up the northern province of Balkh to the south. The city plays an important role regionally and nationally. Close to the northern borders of Afghanistan, the provincial capital has linguistic, cultural and economic links with Uzbekistan, which the central government of Kabul has always tried to limit and control. Many pilgrims visit the large blue mosque in the city centre. Mazar-e-Sharif’s isolation has meant that it has not seen as much conflict as Kabul or the south of the country and as a result it has attracted and continues to attract a great number of returnees from Iran and Pakistan.
In this reconstruction phase, the problems the city faces are not so much the direct consequence of conflict, but of structural breakdown in and around the city caused by the arrival of refugees. The situation is comparable to that of Kabul, with almost 70% of informal and/or illegal occupation of land, Mazar-e-Sharif needs to absorb these new arrivals and begin a phase of profound structural renewal. However, there are many hurdles to overcome (blocked or legally unavailable buildings, insufficient water supply infrastructure, non-existent drainage, evacuation or collection of waste, lack of appropriate urban planning skills, etc.).

- Evaluation of Cooperation Center for Afghanistan’s monitoring and evaluation system (August 2007):
The international NGO, Church World Services, asked Groupe URD to carry out an evaluation and to provide training for part of the CCA personnel. CWS has been in Afghanistan for several years and works with Afghan NGOs on food security, water and sanitation, gender and the development of civil society. CCA is an Afghan NGO founded in 1990 by a group of Afghan refugees in Peshawar. It played a relatively important role on the humanitarian scene during the civil war and Taliban government. For several years CWS has worked with CCA as a donor and partner. CCA currently works in 9 Afghan provinces.
The aim of this project was to evaluate CCA’s current M&E system and to conduct a three-day training course in order to improve the current system.

- Evaluation of the WFP’s “Oil-For-Girls-Education” programme in the provinces of Dai Kundi, Paktya and Parwan (August-November 2007):
Since 2001, the education sector in Afghanistan has become considerably more structured. Different reforms have been put in place to improve teaching conditions and give young Afghans access to primary and secondary education. The schooling of girls remains a problem with only 40% attending school, compared to 70% for boys. In certain regions, and particularly the south of the country, the percentage of girls who go to school is below 10%. Several programmes implemented by NGOs and UN agencies aim to increase the percentage of children in education, and particularly the percentage of girls. For several years, the WFP has been running a programme called “Assistance to Girls’ Primary Education” in provinces where food insecurity prevails. In the Kabul zone (regions in the center and south-east of the country), vegetable oil is distributed to girls who go to school more than 22 days per month in order to encourage families to send them regularly.
The WFP asked Groupe URD to carry out an evaluation in three provinces (Pakta, Parwan and Dai Kundi), in order to evaluate the impacts of this programme and to make proposals to improve its quality. Interviews with families who send their girls to school and with others who don’t made it possible to analyse the different factors which prevent or hold back girls from going to school. The conclusions of this research are not available to the general public for the time being.

- Diagnosis of the GTZ monitoring and evaluation system (PAL project – Provinces of Nangahar, Laghman and Kunar) (September 2007):
The Project for Alternative Livelihoods, run by GTZ in Jalalabad, aims to contribute to the reduction of poverty and to enable the transition from an economy based on the production of opium to a system based on other economic alternatives. To monitor how the different elements of the project develop, an Activity M&E Group was created.
In order to improve how this unit functioned, GTZ asked Groupe URD to evaluate it, to establish what its strengths and weaknesses were, and to propose modifications to improve it. The aim of the project, which will last several months, is to provide GTZ with a project monitoring database. This will be based on the Dynamic COMPAS, a software application developed by Groupe URD, which allows users to establish a quality assurance method for the monitoring and evaluation of projects. Groupe URD has also helped the PAL team to identify indicators to monitor the quality of its projects.

- Evaluation of the National Solidarity Program (NSP) M&E system in the provinces of Herat, Bamyan, Balkh and Nangahar (February – March 2008):
The National Solidarity Program has been run by the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) since 2002. The main objective is to give more power to communities through the election of Community Development Councils. CDCs are the first level of local power and their role is to identify needs in order to set up a development project financed by the state (e.g. infrastructure, projects for women, etc.). In each district, NGOs are involved in facilitating the process, helping in the creation of CDCs and supporting them in the different stages of identification and planning of a project. More than 4000 people currently work for the NSP in 9 departments, 6 regional offices and 34 provinces. 28 international and Afghan NGOs are helping the CDCs to implement more than 30 000 projects. The existing monitoring process for the different steps of this programme is weak and inefficient. It has therefore become urgent to rationalise the system for processing data from the field. A genuine monitoring system based on real objectives and indicators needs to be set up.
The MRRD asked Groupe URD to analyse the NSP’s current M&E system, to identify its strengths and weaknesses and to recommend improvements which could be made to produce a system which would make it possible to:
- know at all times what progress is being made on a project at district, provincial and regional levels;
- continually monitor the quality of projects and make adjustments to improve their quality;
- obtain information about the quality of the programme and the relevance of the objectives fixed.

- CCA / CWS: Monitoring and Evaluation of projects (Kabul Province) (August 2007) :
This course is the continuation of the above-mentioned evaluation of the Cooperation Center for Afghanistan’s M&E system.

- Dynamic COMPAS training course, Kabul (December 2007) :
Project and information management is of key importance to ensure the quality of a humanitarian project. Many weaknesses observed on projects are not due to a lack of technical knowledge but rather that qualitative aspects have not been taken into account enough. This training course, based on the COMPAS method, covered issues such as situation analysis which is more than just a needs analysis, project design which goes further than the logical framework, the formulation of objectives and indicators which are linked to project criteria, designing and implementing a system to monitor the quality of a project, the difference between monitoring and evaluation.
Representatives from a number of organisations attended this course including Cordaid, GTZ, NSP, Relief International, Madera, DACAAR and Zoa Refugee Care. The course is centred around a case study which gives participants real practical experience of managing the quality of a project and using the COMPAS quality assurance method and software.