This village suffers from floods on the river side and drought on the mountain side. Agricultural land is often washed away or difficult to cultivate due to an inability to capture and store water. OCHA/Liz Loh Taylor
Afghanistan is experiencing the residual impact of decades of conflict, years of drought conditions, and chronic and continued poverty. The situation worsened after the severe economic decline experienced in the immediate aftermath of the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Despite the significant reduction in active military fighting, the crisis in Afghanistan remains first and foremost a protection crisis, aggravated by severe climate change impacts which have today created a water crisis – both urban and rural. Additionally, food security, health, nutrition, shelter, and education needs remain high. In 2024, an estimated 23.3 million people will require humanitarian assistance to survive.
The Afghan economy remains fragile, with most families struggling to maintain their livelihoods and relying heavily on international aid and remittances. Exclusion of women from economic participation hampers recovery efforts, while deflation and economic sensitivity to shocks persist.
Increasingly, restrictive policies inhibiting women's rights, movement and participation in humanitarian action negatively impact global engagement and donor contributions to life-saving initiatives. These restrictions on women's work and freedom continued to grow stronger during 2023, with implications for education, healthcare, and other sectors.
Increasing bureaucratic hurdles, reduced localized negotiation opportunities, and efforts to exercise control over humanitarian activities create delays in project registration and implementation.
Gula Ram, Afghanistan
Climate change has had a severe impact on these women, they face food and water shortages, selling livestock to fund migration of younger members of the community. The previously abundant water supply from the mountains has been severely reduced, jeopardizing their drinking supplies.
OCHA/Liz Loh Taylor
In the latter part of 2023, regional developments have triggered the return of thousands of undocumented Afghans and refugees from Pakistan to Afghanistan, precipitating a returnee crisis that is poised to significantly influence humanitarian response efforts well into 2024. The surge in returns to Afghanistan was propelled by Pakistan's announcement on 3 October of a new policy targeting the deportation of undocumented Afghans, affecting approximately 1.3 million Afghans presently residing in Pakistan. As of mid-November, over 370,000 returns, encompassing voluntary returns and deportations, were reported, with a peak of 25,000 individuals per day in early November before stabilizing at approximately 5,000 per day. This influx includes highly vulnerable populations, including women and children with heightened protection needs. Boarder points and host communities have been placed under great strain. Humanitarian organizations have scaled up assistance providing medical screening, protection, counselling, legal assistance, food, transportation, WASH, and registration service but further support is needed, especially with the onset of Afghanistan’s harsh winter. Projections indicate that, by July 2024, more than 720,000 undocumented Afghans and 50,000 refugees are likely to return.
Afghanistan is also in the grips of a climate-induced crisis. Anticipated El Niño conditions in late 2023 and early 2024 could bring both opportunities and risks, including above-normal rainfall in some parts of the country, which might support drought recovery but also trigger flooding and crop pests. A close-to-average harvest is expected in 2024, with food security dependent on socio-economic conditions and factors like seed availability and fertilizers. However, multiple districts are now in severity 5 for water and sanitation emphasizing the severity of the ongoing water needs in areas of the country, where there is little prospect of near-term improvement.
With the limited funding, humanitarian actors are forced to carry out stricter prioritization for the most in need and to set clear boundaries between humanitarian and basic human needs interventions. The lack of infrastructure (e.g., in WASH, and other sectors) is heavily contributing to compounding humanitarian needs. With a view to recovery, in addition to life-saving humanitarian funding, investments may be needed in sustainable livelihoods and infrastructure to improve resilience among the Afghan population in the face of shocks.
Afghanistan
This wetland and was a viable water source, but now it is bone dry and hardly sustainable. Once thriving villages are losing their livestock and livelihoods to the drought.
OCHA/Liz Loh Taylor
Response priorities in 2024
The humanitarian response for Afghanistan in 2024 will prioritise the urgent and comprehensive needs of 23.3 million Afghan people in the face of the deteriorating protection environment for women and girls, three devastating 6.3 magnitude earthquakes in Herat Province that occurred in October 2023, and the increase in the return of undocumented Afghans since mid-September 2023. The response also prioritises acute WASH needs due to the consecutive years of drought conditions and climate change, as well as ongoing acute food security for millions.
The provision of life-saving assistance, including food, emergency and safe drinking water, and healthcare, will remain a top priority. Food assistance will be provided to 15.8 million people in Afghanistan experiencing critical and severe phases of food insecurity. Humanitarian organisations will also focus on strengthening the healthcare system, maintaining, and supporting delivering lifesaving and life-sustaining health services by ensuring accountability to affected populations, disability inclusion, protection from sexual exploitation and abuse, and gender-sensitive response. Furthermore, access to education for Afghan children, especially girls, remains a priority through continued support for Community-Based Education (CBE) and innovative alternative learning modalities. Additionally, efforts will be made to continue addressing malnutrition through the provision of acute malnutrition treatments and blanket supplementary feeding programs.
Aid in Action
Maintaining Afghan women’s participation in the response
Afghanistan
Mobile medical teams treat the injured after an earthquake.
OCHA/Sayed Habib Bidell
Increased protection risks to women and girls associated with the highly restrictive rights environment and diminishing ability to access assistance and services – particularly following the De-facto Authorities' (DfA) ban on Afghan women working for the UN and I/NGOs – have added yet another layer of complexity to an incredibly challenging protection environment.
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Framework of Operations and subsequent Monitoring Report (Afghanistan Pulse Check) was developed to track the constraints facing Afghan women participating in the humanitarian response, and their continued ability to be able to reach the most vulnerable populations, especially women and girls. The report outlines the ability of UN agencies and I/NGO partners to maintain a principled response within the operating environment, including analysis of humanitarian staffing composition and working modalities. The ongoing difficulties that organisations face as they negotiate women’s participation in programming, response achievements and challenges and the impact of severe underfunding are also highlighted.
According to the monitoring report findings, humanitarian actors have been able to reach similar numbers of people with life-saving assistance compared to the same period in 2022 (21.5 million people between January and June 2023 compared to 22.9 million people during the same period in 2022). In 2023, they have not only resumed but also scaled up programmes that had initially been suspended1. Humanitarian actors have also successfully secured local arrangements with the DfA which enabled Afghan women staff to participate across all areas of the response—from assessments to distributions and monitoring2.
Despite these achievements, challenges remain, including uneven reinforcement of bans countrywide, lengthy negotiations for women’s access, heightened risks of sexual exploitation of abuse, and feelings of isolation, stress, and fear among Afghan women staff. While steps have been taken to address these issues, more dedicated efforts are required to ensure that women’s meaningful participation is mainstreamed throughout both programmes and workplaces.
The humanitarian response in Afghanistan will emphasise the protection of civilians, especially women and children, who are at heightened risk of violence and exploitation in the current context. This includes providing safe spaces, legal support, and psycho-social services for survivors of gender-based violence. Humanitarian actors will also work to facilitate the safe and dignified return of displaced populations to their homes while addressing the broader issue of explosive hazards. Long-term resilience-building initiatives, including vocational training and livelihoods support, will also be integrated into the response to enable Afghans to rebuild their lives and communities, fostering hope for a more stable future.
It is imperative to acknowledge that the operational environment is likely to become more complex with the varying implementation of various procedures and instructions from the De-facto Authorities (DfA), including, but not limited to, ‘the procedure for coordination of humanitarian response’ and ‘the directive banning Afghan women humanitarian workers,’ forcing humanitarian actors to continue operations through cumbersome and labour-intensive negotiations. These could result in a shrinking humanitarian space, delayed project implementations, and increased interference by the DfA in program design and aid diversion. Furthermore, there is heightened scrutiny and monitoring of humanitarian operations, leading to a greater risk of violence against aid workers. This complex and evolving access scenario poses significant challenges for humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan.
Aid in Action
Herat earthquake response
Gyan district, Pakitika Province, Afghanistan
A woman mixes dough, a traditional yogurt drink, in her damaged home, one year after the June 2022 earthquake.
OCHA/Elise Blanchard
Three powerful (6.3 magnitude) earthquakes struck Herat Province on 7, 11 and 15 October affecting 1.6 million people with high-intensity shaking (MMI 6+) and leaving at least 275,000 in 482 villages in immediate need of humanitarian assistance. Based on the latest assessments, the earthquakes left 1,480 people dead and more than 2,000 wounded. The earthquakes struck highly vulnerable communities – who are already grappling with decades of conflict and under-development – leaving them with little resilience to cope with multiple simultaneous shocks. The earthquakes also came at the start of Afghanistan’s lean season and immediately before the harsh winter months, when households’ food resources are most constrained.
In the immediate aftermath of the first earthquake, humanitarian response teams were deployed to deliver urgent life-saving assistance, including trauma care and immediate medical support. Joint assessment teams comprised of both men and women were rapidly deployed to assess the impact of the earthquakes and guide response efforts, identifying more than 10,000 homes destroyed and 20,000 severely damaged buildings. In-country internal surge deployment to Herat from national and sub-national clusters enhanced local coordination efforts and enabled local staff to attend to their personal and family needs, enhancing duty of care provisions.
Within 24 hours of the first earthquake, the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund (AHF) allocated US$5 million in immediate funding to expedite the delivery of essential, life-saving shelter, food, health, and WASH assistance. Subsequently, US$5 million in CERF Rapid Response and an additional US $5 million in AHF funding were allocated to bolster response efforts. Immediate funding has enabled the distribution of more than 14,000 emergency tents and 86,000 food packages, and more than 48,000 affected families have been reached with clean water.
In the aftermath of the earthquakes, OCHA served as a critical intermediary between the De-facto Authorities (DfA) and the humanitarian community. A daily movement system was implemented to facilitate approval processes and coordinate humanitarian team activities, ensuring their safety and efficiency. OCHA also worked with provincial-level DfA to coordinate response distributions and reduce duplication in the delivery of bi-lateral aid donations contributed by some Member States, the private sector and charity organizations.
Humanitarian partners remain committed to delivering vital humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan’s most vulnerable, even in the face of reduced funding – only 34.3 per cent funded as of 31 October 2023 – and continue to emphasise the importance of women’s involvement in aid provision and monitoring of aid conditions. The humanitarian partners aim to provide at least one form of assistance to more than 20.6 million people, of which 52 per cent are women and girls, by the end of 2023.
It is essential to recognise the shift from traditional humanitarian assistance to a focus on meeting the basic human needs of the Afghan population. The humanitarian actors will work closely with the Basic Human Needs actors to not only provide immediate relief but also empower communities to regain their self-sufficiency. Efforts will concentrate on supporting local capacities, livelihoods and water management to ensure that Afghans have the means to secure their food, shelter, and livelihoods.
Afghanistan
References
The proportion of humanitarian and women-led organizations reporting that they are ‘fully operating’ steadily increased from 22 per cent in February, to 29 per cent in March and 36 per cent in May, to 39 per cent in July 2023
41 per cent confirmed that they have secured local authorizations which enable their Afghan women staff to report to project locations, while 22 per cent indicate that they have negotiated with the DfA that their female staff can report to the office