The first stakeholder coordination committee meeting of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation & Livestock (MAIL) was held on 2 March 2016 at the request of General Directorate of Natural Resources of MAIL and supported by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). The one-day meeting at MAIL was attended by the over 50 people from government departments, donor agencies and development organisations working on natural resource management in Afghanistan.

The meeting objective was to formalise the coordination mechanism between MAIL-Natural Resource Management (MAIL-NRM) among these agencies and organisations to achieve better coordination, collaboration and synergy among all stakeholders.

As part of the meeting, a coordination committee was established and developed a terms of reference. MAIL-NRM presented its institutional mandates, on-going policies and programmes  and a draft version of the new national strategy on natural resources management. Several partner organisations presented their work in Afghanistan and issues related to coordination were discussed.

Abdul Qadeer Jawad, Deputy Minister for Finance and Administration attended the opening session of the meeting on behalf of MAIL. He said establishing a coordination mechanism among the stakeholders was extremely important for sustainable, proper and integrated management of natural resources. Jawad emphasised the importance of international experience and partnerships in the development of policies, legislation and investment in the management of Afghanistan’s natural resources.

ICIMOD supported MAIL in designing and developing workshop materials; providing financial support MAIL to organise the meeting; moderating all the discussions at the meeting; and preparing workshop outputs.

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