The people of Afghanistan are affected by conflict, insecurity and severe poverty causing reduced access to food, lack of education, poor health and unemployment. NAC works in rural and hard-to-reach areas with a conflict-sensitive, integrated approach to empower communities to improve their livelihoods. In its selection of partner communities, NAC equally considers needs and access, as well as balanced coverage of the different ethnic groups in the country.
NAC’s main program areas are: Support to education, including teacher training and education of health professionals, sustainable agriculture and natural resource management, job creation and dialogue and conflict transformation. NAC rebuilds trust and solidarity within and between communities by providing safe spaces for dialogue to build resilience and to contribute to peacebuilding from the grass root level. By strong integration of the different program components, NAC targets the poorest part of the population.
Good governance, civil society, human rights and gender sensitivity are considered as cross-cutting issues and included in all program activities. NAC empowers women, youth and children by building confidence and self-esteem, in particular through the education of girls and advocating for women to study, work and be active in society.
The empowerment of schools and school communities is at the center of our approach to poverty reduction. Parallel to our community-based efforts, NAC works to institutionalize its initiatives at district, provincial and national levels through civil society actors and international development partners.
Education of health care professionals is crucial to ensure access to quality health care for all and to strengthen the capacity of the healthcare system. By focusing particularly on education of female health professionals NAC aims to improve maternal and child health and reduce mortality. NAC includes extra-curricular activities based on project-based learning, rights, dialogue and peaceful conflict resolution with an aim to contribute to women’s empowerment, beyond pure professional skills.
NAC works to promote sustainable agriculture and addresses risk mitigation associated with climate change and natural disasters. The organization addresses male and female farmers with small pieces of land and landless people with the aim to improve food and nutrition security, increase income and employment opportunities.
All of NAC’s work is directed towards long-term sustainable development. We may strategically engage with emergency humanitarian efforts where we are able to add comparative advantage and tether such efforts to our longer-term development goals.
Who do we partner with?
To ensure that initiatives are institutionalized and sustained, NAC cooperates closely with communities and civil society in an effective and cost-effective way. While remaining an implementing organization, we seek to formalize our approach to partnership, and to engage with our partners in a systematic and strategic manner and to ensure mutual accountability mechanisms.
Sustainability
To ensure that communities, civil society and state actors are able to sustain joint programs, we aim to systematically build institutional capacities.
Knowledge management, monitoring and evaluation
NAC ensures that monitoring and evaluation findings feed into the organization’s learning in a coherent way to improve program quality and impact.
Information and influencing public opinion
NAC has a distinct and coherent voice in communication, advocacy and fundraising. It aims to set the agenda and inform and influence policy development in Afghanistan and amongst international development partners beyond the impact at program level.
NAC collects information, lessons learned, success stories and failures for learning purposes. To influence policy NAC will increase communication, publishing and dissemination of research briefs, and use multi-media to show NAC’s comparative advantage and added value.
NAC’s identity and programmatic approach defines its positioning, branding, imagery and storytelling.
Within Norway, NAC serves as a meeting place for those with an interest in Afghanistan and promotes Afghan voices and perspectives within the Norwegian public debate. It aims to link information on Afghanistan to the broader development agenda.
NAC builds networks with like-minded organizations and institutions.
