CAF Background

INTRODUCTION:

Care of Afghan Families (CAF) is a non-governmental, non-political, not-for-profit, and independent organization established in January 2003 and registered with the ministry of planning with registration No.948, then based on the requirement of government re-registered with Ministry of Economy with Registration No.68 Date September 29, 2005.

CAF is an initiation of senior Afghan staff of several international organizations, i.e., Action Contre la Faim (ACF), International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and World Health Organization (WHO). Founders of the organization aimed to transfer international organizations’ knowledge, expertise, and experiences to a national agency to guarantee the sustainability of humanitarian interventions.

ORGANIZATION GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RESOURCES:

CAF is governed by its Board of trustee comprised of dedicated volunteer members, Board of Advisory comprised of the founders of the organization and Board of Omanagement comprised of high level staff with postgraduate-education from prestigious institutions. They have years of experience in leadership and management positions and are mastered in public health, financial Management, community development, PhD in Public health from prestigious international academic institutions. The organization has specific capacity to develop highly qualified and committed staff to ensure effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of its projects in the country.

INTERNAL CONTROL AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT CAPACITY

CAF as an independent organization, has its charter, policies, and procedures developed in line with the operating country laws and international standards for internal control. CAF Charter, is the main governing instrument of the organization, emphasizes the effective and efficient use of the resources. Moreover, the organization other policies and procedures that are applied during the operations of CAF ensures sufficient internal control in all conducts. The financial management system, policies, procedures, and internal control system are in-line with the financial management ethical principles, International Accounting Standards (IASs), and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). We aim to ensure core values of accountability, transparency, and integrity in all our conduct. Gutenberg

The table below describes the total expenditure managed by CAF for the last 5 years:

Yearly Turnover
2019	2020	2021	2022	2023 to March 19 2024
$5,372,741.00	$6,978,312.00	$7,829,534.00	6,564,907	16,427,227

WORK PRINCIPLES:

CAF respects all laws and regulations of the country, especially the non-governmental organization rule. Furthermore, CAF is an implementing partner of various donors’ funding; respect all the various donors’ rules and regulation and complies with all requirements of the contract from the Donors side.

To perform its humanitarian and development duties, the organization strictly respects the following principles:

Independency: As real and 100 % independence is impossible in practice, for CAF, independence means to keep the policy of interdependency with the stakeholders and partners with performing all its activities in light of the organization’s overall goal.
Non-political: the organization doesn’t support any political party. But CAF will explain the cause of diseases and infirmities to the families.
Equity: CAF is against all kinds of discrimination and performs its service based on equity, which considers the need of families and the population.
Professionalism: to have efficient and good quality services, the organization performs all processes of management of its projects with professional standards.
Transparency and accountability: the organization is ready to give reliable information regarding the management of its budget and projects to related organizations and the government.

CORE VALUES:

Accountability and transparency: able to provide evidence and prove for the use of the organization’s resources.
Equity and integrity: Being honest and respecting others’ rights.
Professionalism: Having the required qualifications and using them in performing a job.
Efficiency: Using resources economically and reasonably to deliver effective outputs.
Innovation: Applying new methods to deliver better services.
Neutrality: CAF provides services considering neutrality.

AIM OF THE ORGANIZATION

The organization aims to improve the quality of life and living conditions among Afghan families.

CAF MISSION:

The mission of CAF is to enable families to fight against poverty, injustice, and unawareness.

CAF VISION:

The vision of CAF is “Self-reliant, aware and healthy Afghan Families”.

ADAPTIVE STRATEGIES

The following adaptive strategies have been prioritized for implementation in the next five years:

Service expansion: CAF aims to expand its services to new provinces – needy people –, especially in nutrition, education, women and youth empowerment, and community development programs.
Enhancement: We would like to improve the quality and efficiency of our service provision, especially in the areas of service delivery, public relation, professional capacity building, monitoring, and evaluation.
Diversification (related / unrelated): Currently, CAF is implementing mainly BPHS and EPHS, Women empowerment, health emergency, and health-vertical projects. For the next five years, besides the health projects, we will focus more on nutrition, education, and community development projects.
Theoretical Orientation: We consider the three theoretical sources of recurrence – the Matthew effect – for purposing, designing, and implementing grants/projects that are CAF’s reputation among the partners, CAF’s formulation expertise, and CAF’s innovation capabilities. Our capacity-building programs are based on the Endogenous Growth Theory that ensures a high positive correlation between investment in education (capacity building programs), and economic growth – high capacity of staff providing quality services.

WORKING DIRECTION:

1. Health,
2. Nutrition,
3. Community development,
4. Education and research,
5. Women & Youth Empowerment,

PARTNERSHIPS & DONORS

CAF has worked in partnership with governmental, national, and international implementing partners and has vast experience of working with different donors and international agencies such as the MOPH, World Bank, USAID, EC, HSSP, Jhpiego, MSH, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNOCHA, GIZ, WHO, UNFPA, FAO, SDC, UNAMA, UNHCR, Micronutrient Initiative (MI), Global Fund, GAVI-HSS, Action Aid, ARD, and TDH. Meanwhile, CAF has experience of working with different local and international implementing partners such as Merlin, AKF, AKHS, Save the Children, Medair, SHDP, BRAC, HNTPO, AWEC, AHDS, BARAN, and OPHA.

MEMBERSHIPS

In the past, CAF was the second vice chair of Country Coordination Mechanism (CCM). Currently, CAF is an active CCM and HSS Steering Committee member, representing all civil societies in this forum, an active member in CPDS (Coordinated Procurement Drugs Supply System). CAF is an active member and the steering committee member of the Alliance of Health Organization (AHO), an umbrella organization of most health NGOs working in Afghanistan. CAF has contributed significantly to health sector policy development through participating in different forums. CAF has contributed to the finalizing of National Standard Treatment Guidelines (STG) for the primary level (as a quick reviewer). This Guideline was developed by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH)-General Directorate of Pharmaceutical Affairs (GDPA) under the financial support of USAID/SPS. Also, CAF was a member of the BPHS revision committee during the years 2009 and 2010. Recently, CAF has contributed to the National Health Strategic (NHS) 2016-2020 through revision and inputs on the document. Furthermore, CAF has the membership of GBV sub-clusters, health and nutrition clusters, the Advocacy Committee of AWN, and the National Masculinity Alliance.

BACKGROUND/EXPERIENCES

CAF has vast experience in implementing projects; from the time of establishment, January 2003 to date CAF has worked and implemented projects in different provinces of Afghanistan such as Kabul, Parwan, Kapisa, Panjsheer, Baghlan Samangan, Kunduz, Takhar, Badakhshan, Jawzjan, Faryab, Mazar, Maimana, Logar, Kandahar, Bamyan, Daikundi, Khost, and Paktia. The Projects implemented are all based on the working direction of CAF and included the Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS), Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS), M-Health, COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System preparedness, Comprehensive Trauma Centre support and management, Mobile Health Team, Strengthening and Scaling-up Malaria Prevention, treatment and Case Management, Malaria Roll back program, Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLIN), Community Based TB, TB DOTs, TB control Program, HIV projects, Growth Monitoring, Targeted/Therapeutic Supplementary Feeding Program (TSFP), Micronutrient initiative, Breastfeeding Support Groups, based Management of Acute Malnutrition-CMAM, Development of nutrition communication materials, 1000Days Nutrition campaign, Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), Community Midwifery Education (CME), Community Health & Nursing Education (CHNE), Trainings of Community Health Workers (CHWs) Community Sustainable Water Supply and sanitation, Community Based Financing, Social Promotion in Afghanistan, People with Disabilities Program, Support to IDP and Returnees, Women Protection Center (WPC), Family Guidance Center (FGC), conducting of surveys, Formative researches, Baseline and End of projects Assessments, Capacity Buildings and Trainings of NGOs and communities, and other Health, Nutrition, Community Development, Education & researches and women & youth empowerment projects and programs.

By End of 2023, Totally 175 projects are successfully implemented which are all audited by reputable audit firms with no material finding.

CAF currently is implementing BPHS and EPHS projects in Logar Provinces funded by UNICEF/World Bank, FHH project funded by UNFPA is Samangan and Logar, TB stop project funded by UNOPS in Jawzjan, Herat, Balkh and Kabul. Malaria control program funded by UNDP in Logar, and Target Supplementary Feeding Program (TSFP) in Logar funded by WFP.

Twenty years of experience in different working directions as per CAF strategic plans has further improved the organization’s capacity to realize its mission – empowering the families and communities to fight against poverty, injustice, and unawareness and deeply strengthened its understanding of the local context and network with relevant communities. CAF has received several appreciation certificates from donors, community leaders, provincial governors, MoPH, MoE, and MoF, which witness its satisfactory performance. As a national NGO, CAF has the strengths of having local knowledge and working in changing, challenging, and complex environments. CAF has vast experience in leadership development programs (LDP), Partnership Defined Quality (PDQ), Harmonized Quality Improvement Program (HQIP) and implemented these approaches throughout its projects.

CAF has the honor of improving 18 local Afghan NGO staff’s capacity on seven Modules: Project Management, Financial Management, Gender integration in projects, Fundraising, Strategic Planning, Organizational governance, and Human Resource Management under USAID Fund.

CAF was the only organization that could win the grant (Baby-Friendly Village Initiative, nutrition-focused project) from World Bank South Asia Development Market Place at the regional level. CAF implemented the project with great success and presented it to MoPH, Donor, and SARDAM KNOWLEDGE FORUM in Nepal (13-14 Jun 2012) as one of Afghanistan’s and the region’s best practices. MoPH accepted this initiative as one of the excellent nutrition projects and scaled it up in the whole country under Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative. Moreover, CAF has started the mobile health (m-health) initiative for the first time in the country with the Afghanistan government’s financial support. The project was a demand-side financing pilot project with case and control arms operating in 4 districts of Badakhshan province. The project aimed to increase the utilization of health services by women and children under five by strengthening the referral system from the community to health centers. In 2019 CAF started to work for gender and women empowerment in the country by running a women protection center in the Parwan province with the financial support of UNWOMEN and considering successful implementations, Un-Women expanded its fund to three more provinces.

CAF was recognized as one of the best NGOs in implementing hospital services in the country through a comprehensive analysis by the ministry of public health and awarded the Afghan-Japan hospital’s implementation. To support the public health system, CAF took the responsibility of carrying Afghan-Japan hospital services in Kabul province. The hospital managed, tested, and hospitalized COVID-19 patients for the catchment area of the hospital and as a central diagnostic point for all over the country. Also, it was a training institute for all laboratories working for the COVID-19 in the country. Meanwhile, CAF was micro-assessed by UNICEF in 2023 by BDO Company in different thematic areas and was rated as a low-risk Organization.