CO-Seasonal Support Project-SSP The food assistance project is with financial of WFP will provide food to the eligible food insecure families to enable them to have access food during the lean season, and prevent adaption of negative coping strategies.
Frequent disasters and ongoing conflict has hampered communities coping capacity to even manage local emergencies, the assistance planned under this project will target the seasonally food insecure families for the duration of 3 months (Feb 15, - May 15,  2020). The project will be implemented in Herat City of Herat province.
Building upon Oxfam#s strong gender role and the feminist principles, the project will ensure that women are accessed safely. Their practical needs will be addressed through provision of direct assistance to female beneficiaries while the strategic needs will be addressed through collaboration and close engagement not only with women but also with religious leaders, Arbabs and other influential men. This is done to ensure that, women has a role in decision making process through attending the leading the beneficiary selection committees and decision making about the implementation process. The food amount distributed to women willempower their position in the community and household.
The previous experience shows that women are highly dependent to female for provision of food, clothing and other assistance. This project will financially or economically empower women, through having accessto food items.
Under this project, Oxfam will provide food assistance (Wheat Flour, Salt, Oil and Pulses) to 8,417 households, 58,919 individuals  including 12,668 men, 15,731 women, 14,494 boys and 14,494 girls in Herat city of Herat province.

In coordination with WFP, Oxfam will establish the selection committee, in collaboration of the government representatives. The committee will be responsible for selection of the highly vulnerable Guzars and Police Districts (PDs) considering WFP vulnerability criteria.
For the selection of the food insecure families under the seasonal food support, Oxfam will consult with WFP on modality of the beneficiary selection and the assessment tools will be shared with WFP well in advance to incorporate their inputs to the final version.
The beneficiary selection for the seasonal support project (SSUP-Food) will be conducted  in collaboration with Wakil e Guzar (WeG) by joint assessment team consist of Oxfam, Office of the governor, DOLSAMD, DOWA and PAT.  This selection criteria will be further extended based on WFP recommendation and feedback.
The selected number  of families will be reported to WFP and WFP#s PAT monitoring team for dispatching the food items to the distribution points agreed by Oxfam in consultation with the beneficiaries, local community representatives and the government authorities. The distribution will be conducted in presence of the local government representative and will be coordinated with FSAC to ensure complementarity and avoid duplication of assistance.
WFP, will financially support Oxfam through provisionof food to the beneficiaries. In addition, Oxfam will coordinate with WFP monitoring unit for the project field visit monitoring and post distribution monitoring (PDM). Oxfam MEAL team will conduct PDM, 2 to 3 weeks after every distribution and the reportwill be shared with WFP regularly. To increase the effectiveness of the project, ensure complimentarity and prevent duplication, Oxfam will also coordinate the field level assistance with other partners.
Oxfam will conduct a gender assessment, at the beginning of the project to identify the different roles, needs and capacities of women, men, boys and girls in the community. Female staff will be recruited to access female beneficiaries and ensure participation of women in the project activities, the activities including distribution of input will be delivered in a way to meet the best interest of female beneficiaries and ensure inclusion of women,men, girls and boys. The impact of project will be assessed through the PDMs on different categories of beneficiaries including men, women, boys and girls.