U N I T E D  N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)
AFGHANISTAN: WFP launches major Kabul food survey
4 December 2001


KABUL, 4 December (IRIN) - This week WFP is to begin a two-day household
survey in the Afghan capital Kabul in advance of its first major food
distribution, four weeks after Northern Alliance (NA) forces entered the
city in the wake of the Taliban's retreat. In the largest exercise of its
kind, the survey will register over one million of the capital's most
vulnerable population, issuing them with coupons for food collection.

"The survey is hugely significant because it will pave the way for an
enormous post-conflict emergency distribution," WFP spokeswoman Lindsey
Davis told IRIN on Monday. She added that the aim of the house-to-house
survey in Kabul was to register and issue food coupons to 1.1 million
people. The whole process from registration to distribution will take
seven to 10 days, she said.

Afghan women will be employed to conduct the survey, after years of being
banned from working by the Taliban. Some 2,424 women along with 1,200 men
will carry out the exercise.

"Its the first time that huge numbers of women are employed in Afghanistan
and it's the first step for women to come forward," Davis said. WFP would
pay the women US $20-40 for a week's work depending on the level of
responsibility.

Meanwhile, WFP reported that some six million Afghans are in desperate
need of food aid throughout the country. Although the agency reached its
monthly food aid target of 52,000 mt on 15 November, an estimated 1.7
million people still urgently require food aid in the central highlands
region before winter sets in.

To this end, a 24-member Swedish Rescue Services team, equipped with 50
heavy duty trucks and snowploughs, plan to set up base camps in Panjou,
Bamian and Chaghcharan in the region to facilitate food distribution.
Together with a three-member avalanche control unit, they will ensure land
access to central Afghanistan over winter.

In addition, WFP is trucking food in from Turkmenistan, Iran and Pakistan
and has started to airlift food to Feyzabad in northeastern Afghanistan.


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001


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