Strengthened, transparent and accountable policing and justice systems are critical to protect Afghanistan's population from insecurity and criminality. The UK is working with the US and EU to reform the Afghan police and funding a bilateral mentoring programme in Helmand province. The UK provides over 50 experts for this purpose. We are working with the Government of Afghanistan (GoA) to strengthen both the formal justice sector (through the GoA's National Justice Programme) and the informal justice system. Improving people's access to justice and dispute resolution is a critical aspect of this work, through legal aid and training in legal and rights awareness. The UK's justice adviser in Helmand has for example established a Women and Children's Justice Group, helping vulnerable groups to have their rights better protected.Food insecurity in Afghanistan has been particularly acute in 2008-09 due to drought and to global food price increases. Around 4.5 million people are currently vulnerable to food scarcity with women, children, and the poorest disproportionately affected. In 2008 DFID provided the World Food Programme (WFP) with £11 million to respond to the food crisis. WFP deliver food on the basis of a Food Vulnerability Assessment which ranks districts in terms of food vulnerability and informs delivery priorities accordingly.Additional suffering is caused by mines and explosive remnants of war: it is estimated that 728 km² still requires some form of clearance and over 4 million Afghans live in mine-affected areas. DFID funds the HALO trust (an expected £4.6 million in 2008-09) to undertake a demining programme, in order to return hazardous areas to productive use and reduce the threat to the population.DFID Afghanistan has developed a Gender Equality Action Plan to drive awareness and focus on gender issues within our development programme. The plan covers gender-disaggregated results monitoring, explicitly mapping staff and programme resources against gender objectives, and an internal skills development programme. A significant portion of our effort will be focused on building partnerships within the GoA and with other donors—particularly multilateral institutions—to increase their contribution to addressing gender inequality. DFID will lobby UNDP, the World Bank, and the Ministry of Agriculture to strengthen their approaches to gender issues.