Afghanistan: An Evaluation of WFP's Portfolio

The Afghanistan Country Portfolio Evaluation (CPE) encompasses the entirety of World Food Programme (WFP) activities in protracted relief and recovery operation (PRRO) 200063 from April 2010 to June 2012. The PRRO aimed to enhance food security and improve the human and productive capital of 7.6 million food-insecure Afghans. As planned, it was the second largest PRRO in the world, representing 9 percent of WFP’s total global budget. Given the extremely complex and challenging operating environment in Afghanistan, WFP’s operations underwent considerable change over the portfolio period. The evaluation found that WFP was appropriately and closely aligned with the evolving general architecture of government policy. Operationally, the evaluation found that while WFP worked closely with government partners at the local level for delivery, monitoring and follow-up, there were challenges and concerns related to partners’ legitimacy in some regions and the adequacy of their management of WFP’s food distribution. Perhaps most importantly, conflict-sensitivity within the portfolio has remained reactive and focused on the maintenance of current activities rather than re-design. Overall, the medium- and longer-term activities such as food for assets were well received by beneficiary communities and nutrition projects have shown some encouraging results.