Afghanistan

The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is characterized by structural and systemic challenges, including significant gender inequality, a constrained rights environment, inadequate essential services, a struggling economy, prolonged food insecurity, and frequent natural disasters and climatic shocks. These issues create a persistent state of chronic need among large segments of the population, who are still recovering from decades of conflict and lack resilience to shocks, leaving them at constant risk of falling into acute humanitarian need. Despite the end of active hostilities, Afghanistan remains a protection crisis, with DfA laws and policies exacerbating the protection risks and needs of women, girls, persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups, while complicating humanitarian efforts to reach them. In 2025, an estimated 22.9 million people will require humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, highlighting the urgent need for comprehensive support to address these ongoing challenges.

Governance and Infrastructure

Three years after taking power, the DfA remain largely politically estranged from the international community and continues to exercise a top-down governance approach rooted in a strict interpretation of Sharia law. The authorities function without a formal constitution, granting greater authority to religious entities, such as the MoPVPV, while diminishing the role of representative structures at the sub-national level, such as community development councils. DfA policies severely regulate public behaviour, resulting in a deteriorating rights environment, particularly for women and girls. Many regulations governing cultural participation, freedom of expression, public behavior and appearance have been codified in the August 2024 PVPV law.¹ This law enforces hijab and mahram requirements for women, mandates beard and congregational prayer requirements for men, bans non-Islamic holidays like Nowruz and Shab Yalda and prohibits music and depictions of living beings. Afghan women and girls are especially affected, as the imposition of stricter mahram requirements further constrain their ability to move freely, participate in society and access services, further worsening gender disparities.

In addition, the lack of inclusive policies and laws hampers access to education, employment, and social welfare services for persons with disabilities.
A bias towards visible and physical impairments combined with unequal entitlements, which, combined with unequal entitlements, further exacerbates the challenges faced by persons with disabilities in accessing essential services and opportunities.²

Severe restrictions on freedom of assembly, political expression and media have raised significant human rights concerns. In addition to the PVPV law, DfA governance is marked by continued limitations on political assembly and stringent media control, with journalists facing the threat of arbitrary detention. Former Afghan National Defense and Security Forces personnel also remain at high risk of verbal threats, arbitrary arrests, detention, torture, ill-treatment and extrajudicial killings, with over 160 such cases documented between January and October 2024.³ Judicial corporal punishments are regularly carried out, and at least six public executions have occurred since 2021 further highlighting the human rights crisis.

The economic contraction, revenue losses and significant reduction in international development assistance that has occurred since the DfA assumed control have limited their capacity to address basic socio-economic and infrastructure needs and respond to shocks from natural disasters, climate change, and population movements, complicating humanitarian and development efforts. While urban areas have seen some improvements in public services, the country still lacks large-scale investments in water infrastructure, agriculture, flood protection, healthcare, education, the social safety net and essential utilities for vulnerable population groups, including persons with disabilities, and essential utilities.⁴ Population growth, returnee inflows and rapid urbanization have created greater demand for already inadequate basic services, such as healthcare, safe drinking water and education, which are insufficient to meet the needs of Afghanistan’s 46 million people and expected to grow to reach 54 million by 2030.

Security

The overall security situation in Afghanistan has significantly improved since the end of large-scale conflict in 2021, with only 2 per cent of households reporting conflict-related shocks for the second consecutive year, a sharp drop from 60 per cent in 2021.¹⁵ However, intermittent cross-border incidents involving military and armed security forces, particularly in Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia and Paktika provinces have resulted in more than 60 civilian casualties throughout 2024.⁶ Targeted improvised explosive device (IED) attacks in populated areas, as well as explosive remnants of war, remain leading causes of civilian harm. Between August 2021 and May 2023, indiscriminate IED attacks accounted for 75 per cent of the 3,774 recorded casualties, followed by unexploded ordnance (UXO) and landmines. Since then, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has documented over 850 civilian deaths and injuries from IEDs or explosive remnants of war.⁷ The Islamic State of Khorasan (ISK), while not controlling any territory in Afghanistan, continues to pose a threat, with nearly a dozen attacks since January harming some 170 civilians in provinces including Bamiyan, Herat, Kabul, Kandahar and Nangarhar.⁸

Afghanistan has one of the highest levels of EO contamination globally due to legacy (pre 2001) and post 2001 conflict. Vast swathes of land and critical infrastructure, including at least 420 schools, remain affected as they are located within 1km of EO contaminated areas. In the past year, more than 55 people, predominantly children, have been killed or maimed by EO each month, which is one of the major contributing factors to the high prevalence of disability in the country.⁹ Agriculture-dependent households such as farmers and herders, displaced populations including IDPs and returnees with limited understanding of the risks in new areas and children – especially those collecting scrap metal for extra income – are particularly vulnerable to the threat of explosive hazards. In 2025, an estimated 4.4 million people will require mine action services, a 5 per cent increase from last year due to newly-surveyed areas which have recently become accessible.

Economy

Afghanistan has seen modest economic improvements after a sharp contraction in late 2021 but the effects of 40 years of conflict, a growing trade deficit (widening by 43 per cent in the first nine months of 2024 due to a strong Afghani currency and frequent border closures with Pakistan), persistent poverty, high unemployment and restrictions on women's participation in the labour market continue to hinder economic growth.¹⁰ However, continued deflation since 2023 has stifled broader economic recovery, even if it has at the same time lowered food prices and partially alleviated the effects of reduced household income. Nearly half of the population remains in poverty, while unemployment rates doubled and while underemployment increased by 25 per cent compared to the period before the takeover.¹¹

These economic challenges have left Afghan households, especially those headed by women, in a precarious position. Recent returnees and those displaced in the longer-term have shown a greater reliance on unsustainable income sources, at 50 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively, compared to the national average of 33 per cent, according to the WoAA 2024. Although average household debt has decreased by 21 per cent (from roughly $716 [AFN 48,527] in 2023 to $564 [AFN 38,233] in 2024), household income has also fallen by 3 per cent in urban areas and 23 per cent in rural areas. Women-headed households have been particularly hard hit, with a 40 per cent decrease in income per household member, compared to a 16 per cent decrease in male-headed households.¹² As a result, 29 per cent of women-headed households, as well as 30 per cent of households headed by a person with a disability, rely on emergency coping strategies such as begging or relying on charity, compared to the national average of 17 per cent.¹³ This fragile economic situation increases vulnerability to future shocks, further exacerbating the need for humanitarian assistance.

Food security and nutrition

Since peaking in November 2021 when approximately 22.8 million people – 55 per cent of the population –were classified as acutely food insecure, the levels of acute food insecurity in Afghanistan continue to marginally but steadily improve, in part due to the sustained scale-up of humanitarian food and agricultural food assistance over the past three years. However, levels of food insecurity still remain high and above pre-2021 levels, with an estimated 14.8 million people – about one-third of the population projected to experience crisis and emergency levels of food insecurity Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) 3+ through March 2025.

Critical issues such as high household debt, reduced income and unemployment continue to prevent many households from meeting their basic food needs. Moreover, malnutrition rates remain stubbornly high the number of districts classified as severity level 4 for malnutrition has nearly tripled from 19 in 2024 to 56 due to reasons such as poor diet, suboptimal breastfeeding practices, high disease prevalence (such as diarrhea, malaria, acute respiratory infections and measles outbreaks), inadequate water and sanitation services, and limited access to healthcare and nutrition services. In 2025, a total of 3.5 million acutely malnourished children and 1.1 million women are projected to require treatment.

Climate, environment and natural disasters

Afghanistan will remain highly vulnerable to recurrent natural disasters, which have replaced conflict as the primary driver of displacement since 2022. The country is prone to a wide range of natural hazards, including earthquakes, droughts, floods, heavy snowfall, landslides and avalanches, with all 34 provinces affected by one or more of these in 2024. Floods and flash floods have been the most devastating sudden- onset disasters in the past five years. In 2024 alone, flooding affected 173,300 people (23,000 families) and damaged or destroyed 20,000 homes, along with agricultural land and other civilian infrastructure including health facilities, schools and irrigation systems. The five-year average shows that 250,000 people are affected by sudden-onset disasters each year, with the same number expected in 2025. The impacts of climate change, environmental degradation and natural disasters disproportionately affect women and girls, intensifying their vulnerability to stress and exposing them to heightened risks of violence and exploitation, particularly in settings where safety and security are compromised.

The expected onset of La Niña in early 2025 is likely to bring below-average snowfall and rainfall, along with warmer temperatures, increasing the likelihood of drought conditions, especially in the northeastern, northern, and northwestern regions, which are ¹⁵ nistan’s key rain-fed agricultural areas. Droughts, combined with irregular flooding, are projected to become more frequent in Afghanistan in the coming years due to climate change which will negatively impact agricultural production and exacerbate the existing water crisis. Afghanistan continues to be highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and remains poorly equipped to adapt, according to the Notre Dame Climate Index.

Protection crisis

Afghanistan remains at its core a protection crisis with this fundamental not expected to change in a context of continuing DfA oppressive restrictions which limit basic rights, freedom of movement and expression and access to essential services, especially for women and girls. The three primary protection risks for 2025, as identified in the recently-endorsed Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) Protection Strategy, are discrimination and stigmatization, unlawful bureaucratic impediments and human rights violations and forced displacement.¹⁴ For example, DfA restrictions on women and girls’ participation in public life, freedom of movement, education, and employment have threatened their access to opportunities, resources and services, with the PVPV law’s stringent mahram requirements further impeding access to essential services like healthcare and gender-based violence (GBV) services. DfA bureaucratic impediments have limited the operations of humanitarian agencies, while limited access to civil documentation for the most vulnerable groups constrains their access to services and justice. Finally, threats of evictions and lack of land security tenure and recurrent natural disasters increase the risks of forced displacement.[15] These protection risks disproportionately affect women, widows, girls, young people, persons with disabilities and ethnic and religious minorities, further undermining resilience, creating ever greater disparities and spurring negative coping mechanisms. Adolescent girls in Afghanistan face a heightened risk of child marriage and gender-based violence. Additionally, limited access to skills development and employment opportunities leaves young people vulnerable to child labor and economic exploitation, often compelled to engage in hazardous work. The rates of child labour and marriage remain high at approximately 19 per cent and 39 per cent, respectively,¹⁶ compared to 25 per cent and 46 per cent a decade ago.¹⁷ Mental health support is critical, as many girls have endured trauma from violence, displacement, and the absence of safe spaces. Restricted access to sexual and reproductive health services further contributes to early pregnancy and health risks.

Meanwhile, EO contamination remains a severe risk, especially for children, who make up the majority of victims. Women, women-headed households and returnees also continue to face barriers in accessing civil documentation due to information gaps, access issues and financial constraints, further limiting their access to services and impacting their housing, land and property rights. These compounded stressors have had a profound impact on psychosocial wellbeing, with 57 per cent of households reporting that a member has experienced psychological distress, according to Protection Cluster monitoring.¹⁸

Additionally, the diverse ethnic and religious groups in Afghanistan continue to face risks of violence, repression, discrimination and marginalization, mirroring past patterns. Attacks by the ISK continue to target minority groups, particularly the Hazara community, while DfA media directives have further narrowed civil society space. Human rights violations against former government personnel and armed forces members remain prevalent.

The risk of forced displacement remains high, driven by cross-border returns, deportations to Afghanistan, and rising threats of evictions. Following the introduction of a new policy by the Government of Pakistan in October 2023 targeting undocumented Afghans, approximately 500,000 returned from Pakistan in the last quarter of 2023. While a second wave of returnees is put on hold as Pakistan has extended its deadline for Afghan Proof of Registration card holders until June 2025,¹⁹ almost 80,000 undocumented and 53,000 documented returnees have already returned to Afghanistan in 2024. In addition, 1.1 million undocumented and about 950 documented Afghans have returned from Iran.²⁰

These returns continue to put pressure on already vulnerable host communities, straining limited services in areas of return and increasing the risk of social tensions over competition for scarce resources. An estimated 6.3 million individuals are experiencing protracted displacement and some 191,500 households in informal settlements face the risk of eviction. This situation is further compounded by climate-related challenges and natural disasters, which also threaten displacement – even if only in the short term.

The increasingly restrictive humanitarian operational environment will pose additional challenges in ensuring that at-risk groups receive the assistance they require. Since the 2021 takeover, DfA line ministries and provincial directorates have issued 408 directives directly impacting humanitarian operations, including 72 specifically restricting Afghan women's participation in the response, of which nine were issued in 2024. These directives add an additional layer of complexity to efforts aimed at reaching the most vulnerable groups with essential assistance and require near- constant engagement at the national, regional and provincial level to overcome.