Stakeholder and policy mapping – Afghanistan

The Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) and the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) research in Afghanistan is on the conduct of a mapping exercise of both agriculture and nutrition stakeholders and policies. This concerns in particular the exceptionally high rates of stunting of under-fives (nationally about 60%, although recent data from the National Nutrition Survey suggest a reduction to 40%).

The intention is to combine assessments of the enabling environment in respect of:

a) mapping the main agriculture/food policies and programmes; and

b) mapping and in-depth interviews to identify key stakeholders in current policies for agriculture, nutrition and health and uptake pathways for research findings.

Stakeholders are critical to the success of the research programme. Stakeholder mapping exercises in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan have identified organisations and individuals that are highly influential and/or highly supportive of addressing nutrition within the agriculture sector.

Objectives of stakeholder interviews

As several parts of the LANSA-AREU research programme rely on input from stakeholders, we aim to organise an initial set of interviews to meet our cross-organisational objectives. These objectives are:

A) Research: To capture stakeholders’ knowledge and perceptions about the political economy of agriculture and nutrition (the political context, dynamics, processes and the opportunities for nutritional considerations to influence agricultural and broader agri-food system policy and practice);

B) Research Uptake: To understand stakeholders’ information sources, and their communication preferences and practices in relation to how they use and regard evidence;

C) M&E: To inform our ongoing learning and M&E. (The findings will provide a snapshot of stakeholder perceptions in the first year; in future it will be important to assess whether (and if so, how) these have changed);

D) Capacity Strengthening: To find out if there are key skills that stakeholders would like to develop.

(As stakeholders’ capacity to access and use research will influence their ability to assimilate LANSA’s research findings, we will use the interview opportunity to identify needs and offer support).