Afghanistan

Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan Afghanistan 2024 / Response plan

Strategic objectives

Overview

In 2024, humanitarian actors will target 17.3 million people across Afghanistan with life-saving humanitarian assistance. The Strategic Objectives will cover the following areas: 1) core emergency response activities, with a focus on addressing immediate life-saving priorities across all sectors; 2) mitigation, monitoring, and advocacy to address all types of protection concerns to ensure equitable, inclusive access to all; and 3) supporting crisis-affected people to build their resilience and live dignified lives.

Scope

The response will provide timely, life-saving education, emergency shelter, health, mine action, NFI, and WASH support to people of all genders, ages, and diversities. This will include rapid and immediate multi-sectoral interventions to ensure that affected people are reached and to prevent further deterioration and employment of negative coping mechanisms. Activities will improve access to food and life-saving nutrition services through in-kind assistance, cash-based transfers, emergency livelihoods support, and programmes to address acute malnutrition. Health interventions will be gender-sensitive and include reproductive health, trauma care, mental health and psychosocial support, as well as disease outbreak prevention and response.

Protection assistance will be central to the humanitarian response in 2024. By utilizing protection monitoring tools and systems, humanitarian actors will identify protection concerns and needs of all groups, considering the specific gender, age, diversity, and disability-related vulnerabilities. Protection activities will include cash for protection, child protection services, and women protection and empowerment services. A core tenant of the HNRP is continuous advocacy at local, provincial, national, and global levels to address the drivers of protection needs and actualize the ‘centrality of protection.’

Response activities will also build the resilience of crisis-affected people through emergency livelihoods support, durable solutions, and infrastructure repair. Household stability will be supported through basic livelihoods support, strengthening of food systems and value chains, investments in communal assets, skills development, and enhanced market access. Humanitarian partners will continue to address the needs of people in informal settlements, cross-border returnees, and host communities by constructing transitional shelters, de-mining, and supporting local livelihood opportunities. Emergency repairs and basic infrastructure rehabilitation will ensure continued access to essential services, particularly water and sanitation. While the humanitarian response cannot address the underlying infrastructure or housing needs, it can provide a critical bridge to stabilise vulnerable people and communities and allow them to move out of immediate crisis.

Strategic Objective 1

Mortality and morbidity of crisis-affected people of all genders and diversities are reduced through timely, multi-sectoral, lifesaving, equitable and safe assistance.

Strategic Objective One focuses on core emergency response activities, with a focus on addressing immediate life-saving priorities across all sectors.

Strategic Objective 2

The protection risks of the most vulnerable are mitigated, and the needs of affected persons of all genders and diversities are monitored and addressed through humanitarian action.

With the deteriorating protection situation being one of the most significant drivers of the increased number of people in need, Strategic Objective Two focuses on mitigation, monitoring, and advocacy to address all types of protection concerns and ensure equitable, inclusive access to all essential services.

Strategic Objective 3

Vulnerable crisis-affected people of all genders and diversities are supported to build their resilience and live their lives in dignity.

Strategic Objective Three prioritizes assistance to the most vulnerable in the community, addressing critical problems related to living standards and coping mechanisms through the provision of emergency livelihoods assistance and access to basic services.

People on the move

In the latter part of 2023, the number of returns to Afghanistan has skyrocketed, precipitating a returnee crisis that is poised to significantly influence humanitarian response efforts well into 2024. So far in 2023, 1.9 million Afghans have returned to the country including more than 471,000 from Pakistan since 15 September, a much higher number than planned for by UN or humanitarian aid agencies. This spike in returns 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.

This influx includes highly vulnerable populations, including women and children with heightened protection needs, who are departing Pakistan for reasons including police harassment, fear of deportation, and lack of livelihood opportunities. From Iran, return and deportations of undocumented Afghans remain high. While voluntary repatriation of registered refugees largely continues in safety and dignity and in relatively low volumes (just under 500 individuals between 01 January and 15 December 2023), there are also tens of thousands among the deportees that were head counted by the Iranian government and considered to be in a refugee-like situation.

This abrupt and substantial movement has strained border points and host communities in the areas of return, exacerbating an already fragile situation characterized by elevated unemployment rates, widespread poverty, insufficient access to basic services, and inadequate infrastructure. In response, humanitarian organisations have scaled up assistance at border points, providing medical screenings, protection, counselling, legal assistance, food, transportation, WASH, and registration services. Further support is being provided in areas of return, as most returnees have limited means and require basic food, education, health support, access to services, and livelihoods opportunities. The onset of Afghanistan’s harsh winter has further exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities and threatens to reduce coping abilities of returnee families.

The ongoing surge in returnees has the potential to significantly impact an already fragile humanitarian context within Afghanistan. Over 1.4 million Afghan returnees from Iran and Pakistan are anticipated to be “on the move” across borders in 2024. This includes more than 978,000 newly returning Afghans from Iran, as well as and 423,000 undocumented returnees and 60,000 documented refugees from Pakistan, many of whom will require humanitarian assistance.

In 2024, bridging the gap between immediate, lifesaving humanitarian assistance and longer-term basic needs support will be critical to facilitate the integration of returnees into host communities and maintaining the current fragile stability in Afghanistan. Humanitarian partners, the Durable Solutions Working Group and basic human needs actors are working together to jointly identify and prioritise household and community-based response activities in areas experiencing high rates of return.

Strategic objective 1

Mortality and morbidity of crisis-affected people of all gender and diversities are reduced through timely, multi-sectoral, lifesaving, equitable and safe assistance.

Strategic objective 2

The protection risks of the most vulnerable are mitigated and the needs of affected persons of all genders and diversities are monitored and addressed through humanitarian action.

Strategic objective 3

Vulnerable crisis-affected people of all gender and diversities are supported to build their resilience and live their lives in dignity.

References

  1. IOM Displacement Tracking Monitoring, 2023.
  2. Pakistan Returnees Border Consortium Appeal, November 2023.
  3. UNHCR Afghanistan- Iran Border Monitoring Update, 7 December 2023.
  4. Documented returnees include Afghanistan Citizen Card holders and Proof of Registration (PoR) card holders.