Badghis, a province in northwest Afghanistan whose name translates as "where the wind comes from" is a land of stunning contrasts. The howling air sweeps down over barren, snow-capped mountains into lush valleys, through bustling towns like the capital Qal-e-Naw, where the rush of the wind is drowned out by tuk-tuk horns and the hammering of repairs, and around quiet villages in which the only other sounds are mountain streams and the bleating of goats.

In 2021, the war followed the wind out of the same mountains and, almost overnight, the economy ground to a halt - as it did across Afghanistan. By 2022, US$5 billion had been wiped from national GDP and UNDP was predicting that 95% of the people would soon fall below the poverty line. A few months later, came bans on women working and on girls eduction. The schools fell quiet, like the valleys. Shops were shuttered as customers turned to beggars. Families borrowed what they could, then sold their possessions. Sometimes they sold their children - into work or marriage. Across the country, cupboards emptied - of food, of medicine, of all essentials.

UNDP's response was to create "ABADEI" - the Area-Based Approach to Development Emergency Initiative. With existing funds repurposed through the Special Trust Fund for Afghanistan, and with new support from the EU and Japan, ABADEI sprung into action in a matter of weeks to create life-saving interventions in all eight regions of Afghanistan, from Kabul to the remotest, hardest-to-reach villages in provinces like Badghis.

The project focusses on basic human needs, complementing humanitarian assistance with longer-term support. There are hundreds of individual activities, but they cover four main areas of work:

Essential services, like healthcare and clean, affordable energy
Local jobs and businesses, including through cash-for work-programmes and grants for women-led enterprises
Helping farmers improve yields and profits and protecting them from natural disasters made worse by climate change
Building community resilience and social cohesion

Since 2021, the project has reached almost 10m people with the kind of help that can save and transform lives: new tools, seeds and irrigation canals for farmers; jobs for women and men who want to rebuild their own communities, support their own families and recover their own dignity; malaria, HIV and TB medicine; access to new markers and new skills for women businesses owners - or for women who want to get new business up and running; and opportunities for communities to come together and heal. To look forward. To imagine and plan for a new Afghanistan.

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