Emergency lifesaving winterization assistance of blankets and cash for heating and winter ‎clothing packages for 1170 Pregnant and Lactating Women (PLW) and their families 8190 ‎persons in 11 districts of Badakhshan province.‎ The project is designed to contribute the Inter-Sector Winter Prioritization 2022, identified by Inter Cluster Coordination Team ICCT need analysis that focus on areas where sector specific needs are the highest, multi-sector needs are most overlapping and multi-sectors activities can have the maximum impact, during the onset of winter 2022. The project directly contribute the specific objective of the ES-NFI cluster "“Ensure affected population groups (IDPs, returnees, non displaced conflict and natural disaster-affected and acutely vulnerable people) of all ages directly affected by new emergencies have immediate and adequate access to emergency shelter, shelter repair/upgrade, households items and seasonal assistance." The project targets remote districts of Badakhshan province, high altitude locations and prone to the impacts of winter that drive the need ‎for provision of life ‎saving winter assistance for the majority of affected ‎‎persons and people at risk ‎including PLWs (mothers and their new born children) whose shelters do ‎not protect against the ‎cold ‎and who do not have the financial capability to ‎purchase fuel and heaters to ‎supplement their ‎heating ‎requirements. The lack of warm clothing, insulation, ‎heating heightens the risk ‎of respiratory ‎infections, ‎hypothermia and preventable mortality among children, pregnant and lactating ‎women PLWs ‎and the elderly are prevalent in these areas.‎ According to Mid-Year WoAA 2022 data, ‎‎77% of the ‎households in Badakhshan needs NFIs and 96% of them doesn’t have access to adequate ‎heating ‎sources.‎
The project provides immediate lifesaving winterization assistance for 1,170 PLW and their ‎immediate ‎family members who are conflict or naturally disaster affected and are the most vulnerable ‎to receive ‎the assistance to save their life during the upcoming winter. The target population are ‎living in ‎severe winter areas including districts that have a mean temperature of above 15 degrees ‎Celsius, also ‎prioritized as number one (most vulnerable) by ICCT-2022 and ESNFI cluster. The ‎winterization assistance packages would be delivered through mixed modality (cash and in kind) and are ‎including heating assistance, blankets and clothing worth of ($ 331) per family. Blankets package will be ‎provided in kind for 1170 PLWs due to quality and accessibility gaps in the local market in term of ‎desired specification and quality while the heating assistance included heater and fuel costs ($ 200) to ‎be used for the three months in winter and winter clothing costs ($ 74) would be provided in cash at one-‎off frequency due to potential cut-off ways between the local markets and communities during. The ‎project ‎harnesses the current functionality of Badakhshan local markets but through regular ‎market ‎assessments prior to the distribution and relevance of the modality. APWDO will ‎contract a local ‎qualified FSP (Hawala) and the selection process will be based on merit by using the cluster assessment ‎tools. Blankets procurement will be done by APWDO in the nearest local market along with quality ‎control jointly by the affected ‎communities and possibly representative of ESNFI cluster. ‎
APWDO will provide the assistance in 11 ‎districts of Badakhshan province, a remote north-eastern ‎province of Afghanistan, APWDO will align ‎the response based on the ESNFI assessment and ‎recommendation on number of districts to be ‎covered by the project and beneficiaries to be considered ‎in each district those are Kofab (80), ‎Khwahan (59), Darwaz-e-Balla (83), Shahr-e-Buzorg (187), Zebak ‎‎(28), Raghestan (142), Khash (136), ‎Wakhan (53), Shuhada (124), Darayem (221), Eshkashem (57) PLWs. ‎APWDO will also coordinate the ‎response with nutrition cluster to seek their assistance including on the ‎level of vulnerability per ‎targeted district. The assessment and beneficiary selection process will be ‎based on the cluster ‎assessment tool