Operational guidance
Logistics guides from the field. For your next move.
Guidance on road transport, vehicle rental, warehousing, NFI procurement, last-mile and winter delivery and workshops in Afghanistan, from delivered work.
Written for the person who has to plan it.
These are working notes for procurement officers, programme staff and operations teams — the constraints that decide whether a distribution lands on the agreed day, and the decisions that are cheap to make early and expensive to make late. Each article comes out of assignments the company has run; where the record does not support a claim, it is left out.
Transportation & fleet
Moving goods by road and putting vehicles and drivers behind field teams.
Templates · Proof of delivery
Proof-of-delivery templates: waybill, goods received note and delivery note
Three blank forms that tie a consignment together from the warehouse to the person who signs for it: a waybill at dispatch, a goods received note when it enters a store, and a delivery note at handover. Print them or take them into Word, and keep the same reference on all three.
Guide · Vehicles and fleet
Vehicle rental for UN and NGO field operations in Afghanistan: what to specify
Most vehicle-rental problems in field programmes are written into the request for quotation. A specification that names the routes, the working pattern, the driver requirements and what happens when a vehicle stops is what turns a set of guesses into quotations that can be compared.
Guide · Road transport
Road transport across Afghanistan: route, load and proof-of-delivery planning
Most failed road movements in Afghanistan were decided before the truck was loaded: a route chosen by distance rather than access, a load that did not suit the vehicle, or a delivery with nobody authorised to sign for it.
Procurement & supply
Specifications, supplier checks, quotations and inspection for donor-funded buying.
Guide · Procurement and logistics
Choosing a logistics partner in Afghanistan: the questions, the evidence and a comparison worksheet
Start with the scope: work inside Afghanistan, international freight and customs, or both. Then put the same questions to every candidate: who does the work in your provinces, what records come back, how a problem is handled, and whether the quotations price the same thing.
Resource · Procurement and supply
Food package procurement in Afghanistan: specification and quality checklist
There is no standard NGO food basket. A food package is whatever the programme's specification says, line by line. This guide turns that specification into a commodity matrix suppliers can price and an inspection checklist that decides what is accepted, packed and delivered.
Guide · Procurement
Framework agreement or one-off procurement? Choosing the contract for repeat supply in Afghanistan
A framework settles the terms once so each requirement can be called off quickly; a one-off procurement prices one defined need. Which fits depends on how predictable the need is, and either works only when the documents say what is fixed, what each order confirms and what is not promised.
Resource · Procurement and logistics
Logistics RFQ checklist for Afghanistan: what to specify before suppliers price
Quotations for the same assignment differ mostly because the request left something open: where the handover happens, who loads and inspects, which records come back, what the price includes. This checklist and template close those gaps before suppliers price.
Resource · Procurement
Supplier due diligence checklist for procurement in Afghanistan
Due diligence answers one question: can this supplier, as it actually exists, deliver this contract and account for it? Registration documents start the answer. References, a look at the capacity it will really use and a written record of what was checked finish it.
Checklist · Inspection
NFI and hygiene-kit inspection checklist: sample approval and acceptance
An inspection checks goods against the specification and the sample you approved, not against a general idea of quality. This record covers both inspections a kit order needs, before purchase and at acceptance, and leaves a signed result that stands up in an audit.
Guide · Procurement
NFI and hygiene-kit procurement in Afghanistan: specification, quality assurance and delivery evidence
An NFI or hygiene-kit purchase is won or lost on three documents: a specification the local market can meet, an inspection record proving the kits matched it, and a delivery file proving who received them.
Guide · Procurement
Procurement planning for NGOs in Afghanistan
What determines whether a purchase lands on time in Afghanistan is rarely the price comparison. It is the specification, the supplier checks, the destination, the season and the evidence plan — decided before the requisition is raised.
Warehousing & stock control
Storage arrangements, stock records, counts and liability between purchase and delivery.
Worksheet · Warehousing
Warehouse space and storage cost planning: how much floor a stock needs
Storage is quoted per square metre, per pallet or per tonne, but a stock is counted in items. The floor it needs is set by the cartons, how high they can safely go and the room the store needs to work, and a worksheet turns those into a figure you can put in a request for quotation.
Guide · Warehousing
Warehouse management for UN and NGO programmes in Afghanistan: what to require
Renting space is the easy part. What protects programme stock in Afghanistan is the control around it: goods received against a record, every movement written on a card, counts that explain differences instead of hiding them, and a contract that says who carries a loss.
Humanitarian distribution
Last-mile delivery, pre-positioning and handover to recipients in remote areas.
Guide · Distribution
Winter pre-positioning and remote-area delivery in Afghanistan
Winter does not close Afghanistan, but it closes enough of it to decide a distribution plan. The work that matters happens in autumn: finding the destinations that lose access, moving stock close to them while roads are open, and agreeing what happens when the plan meets snow.
Guide · Field operations
Last-mile delivery in remote Afghan provinces
Reaching a provincial capital is a freight problem with known answers. Reaching a district beyond it is a coordination problem — a different vehicle, a narrower access window, a named person to sign and proof of delivery captured on the day — and it is where most distribution plans lose their schedule.
Events & field operations
Workshops and training, and the participant logistics and records behind them.
Resource · Events and field support
NGO event management RFQ and budget template for Afghanistan
Event quotations only compare when the request fixes the units: meals in participant-days, rooms in room-nights, transport in trips, allowances at your approved rate. This template sets the scope, and its worksheet keeps the organiser's charges apart from payments to participants.
Guide · Events and field support
Planning workshops and training events in Afghanistan
An institutional workshop is a logistics and accountability exercise wearing an agenda. Most of what decides whether it succeeds — participant travel, attendance, allowances and the closeout file — is settled before anyone books a room.
Where the guidance comes from.
Zhikal has run logistics, procurement, warehousing, distribution and event assignments across Afghanistan since 2011, including a deployment reaching all 34 provinces and warehouse management across ten. These notes describe how that work is actually planned, not how it looks in a capability statement.
See our projects →Discuss a specific operation.
A guide can only go so far, because the answer usually depends on the destination, the season and the controls the contract imposes. For a live requirement, the operations team will scope it against those directly.
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