Water for agriculture: challenges and opportunities in a war zone

Wars, drought and social collapse have greatly impaired land management and agriculture production systems in the southeastern Afghanistan provinces of Khost, Paktika and Paktya. This region has long existed with limited central government influence and remains particularly unstable. A complex physical and social geography, on-going warfare, severely limited mobility and policies poorly adapted to regional realities hamper development and reconstruction. On-farm water efficiency improvement, watershed-scale work restricted to small, socially homogeneous watersheds and word-of-mouth Afghan-to-Afghan technology dissemination are particularly important development strategies in this environment.