Mid-term performance evaluation of the regional agriculture development program in Afghanistan : estimating percentage change in land area under licit agriculture in program areas [public version]

The RADP aims to improve food and economic security of rural Afghans through four projects: RADP-North, RADP-West, RADP-South, and RADP-East. The ET used remote sensing to differentiate between illicit and licit agriculture and quantified the change in area under licit agriculture between pre-program implementation and the evaluation period. The ET used geographic information systems (GIS) data to identify programmatic districts and moderate resolution imagery (MRI) from the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager and the Thermal Infrared Sensor satellite for comprehensive coverage. To differentiate land cover types, the ET used the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and seasonal crop management differences. Results indicate that over the evaluated period, the area under poppy cultivation in RADP-South increased by 20 percent. As a percentage of total agriculture, the area decreased from 7.7 percent in 2013 to 7.4 percent in 2017. In RADP-North, the ET calculated a 440 percent increase in poppy production between the two periods—an increase of 2.1 percent in 2013 to 13 percent in 2017. Water availability contributed to increased poppy cultivation, although RADP-North showed evidence of poppy expanding to desert areas. In both RADP-East and RADP-West the area under poppy cultivation decreased by 78 percent and 57 percent, respectively. In both regions, the decline was attributed to environmental conditions more favorable to licit agriculture.