The consolidation of peace in Afghanistan is intimately linked to the improvement of the population’s living conditions. The military-based approach has shown its limits and the population now wants to see evidence of the ‘peace dividend’. The objective of the project is to improve the quality of national and international aid operations, in order to contribute to the improvement of the population’s living conditions.
The KAIFIAT project (which means QUALITY in Dari) is the second phase of the LRDD project (Linking Relief Rehabilitation and Development), which Groupe URD conducted between 2004 and 2007. It is financed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAIIONG) and will run for a year from March 2007.

The objective of the Kaifiat project is to improve aid actors’ capacity to conduct analyses and operations, and manage knowledge in order to improve the quality of the service provided to the Afghan population.
The project aims to (i) improve the quality of actors’ analysis, and their design, implementation and monitoring of projects; (ii) create a collective learning platform based on the sharing of experiences and good practice and collective knowledge management.
There will be close collaboration (project content, logistical support, training and methodological experimentation, etc.) with French NGOs (Solidarités, MADERA, GERES), international NGOs (Afghan Aid, Oxfam, Concern), Afghan NGOs (CCA, NPO-RRAA), Afghan ministries (Rural Rehabilitation and Development, Agriculture, Water and Power, Public Health, etc.), UN agencies (UNAMA, WFP, FAO), funding agencies (Ambassade de France, SDC, European Commisssion Delegation in Kabul and the ECHO office in Kabul), etc.

The KAIFIAT project will include research, evaluation and training and thus is completely in line with Groupe URD’s mandate and methodological approach based on the collective learning cycle.

Specific objectives :
- To improve knowledge management and the identification of good practice through individual sector and cross-sector evaluation, to follow projects by carrying out action research and to develop tools and methods that allow other actors to appropriate these good practices.
- To ensure that the question of quality is properly taken into account in projects and programmes by means of practical capacity-building processes (career path, systemic learning process, research, co-writing of guidelines) applied throughout the project cycle – initial assessment, programme design, monitoring and evaluation.
- To ensure that the link between emergency relief and development is properly taken into account by supporting partnerships between emergency relief and development actors, setting up collective or individual learning mechanisms and developing tools for specific or general use.
- To promote the creation of an Afghan aid observatory drawn from a network of humanitarian organisations (NGOs, donors, government ministries, specialist agencies), to exchange ideas on practices and methods and how these can be improved.