Health and Livelihoods
Afghanistan is affected by illicit drug production as well as drug use and dependence (and a concentrated HIV epidemic among injecting drug users). With around 2 million drug users and 5% of the population involved in drug cultivation, Afghanistan pays a very high cost for the illicit drug problem in the country.
Sub-programme 3 aims at addressing the needs of drug affected communities, offering alternative livelihood/development streams to poppy/cannabis growing households and persons affected by drug use and dependence, with a special focus on vulnerable groups such as children, adolescents, female injecting drug users and populations in closed settings.
The major objective of support in the area of health is to provide assistance to drug demand reduction and HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in Afghanistan. The sub-programme focuses, generally, on building the capacity of the Afghan counterparts and provide the required technical support to the government and civil society working in the fields of the drug demand reduction and HIV/AIDS in Afghanistan.
Support in the area of livelihoods covers three main areas. Firstly, the programme will strengthen the capacity of GIRoA on Alternative Development (AD) policy development, programme planning and impact monitoring. Secondly, the programme will improve coordination of AD-related work between the government and non-government stakeholders. And thirdly, the programme supports implementation of multifaceted community-based innovative AD projects with an active community-led Counter-Narcotics (CN) element.