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Current Requirements (US$)$1.71 billion
Crisis overview
The crisis in Afghanistan is rooted in the aftermath of decades of conflict, recurrent exposure to natural disaster-related shocks, chronic poverty and underdevelopment, limited access to essential services and systematic human rights abuses and violations particularly targeting women and girls. With nearly 70 per cent of Afghans living in poverty, daily life is a struggle for survival, characterized by dire food shortages and essential nutrition. Food insecurity has deepened compared to last year, now affecting 17.4 million people. At the same time, rates of acute malnutrition are rising: 3.7 million children are affected, including 1.65 million at high risk of mortality, while 1 million pregnant and breastfeeding women require urgent nutrition support across many provinces.
The situation has severely eroded coping mechanisms. Recurrent droughts, seasonal flash floods, earthquakes and other natural hazards continue to push communities into life-threatening conditions. Climate change is intensifying these shocks, with declining rainfall and rising temperatures. In spring 2025, a severe drought devastated rainfed crops, resulting in major harvest losses and prompting unsustainable groundwater extraction as water tables dropped sharply. Millions of farming and livestock-dependent families lost their primary sources of income and food production, driving increased food insecurity, migration and displacement.
In August 2025, a magnitude 6+ earthquake struck the eastern region, flattening entire villages in remote, impoverished areas. It was among the deadliest in Afghanistan’s recent history with humanitarian needs expected to continue well into 2026 as thousands remain displaced in camps and informal settlements. A second 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the northern region on 3 November. Although less destructive overall, it served as a stark reminder of the country’s vulnerability, situated atop three major fault lines. In total, Afghanistan has experienced four earthquakes exceeding 6+ magnitude in the past four years, each affecting different regions of the country.
Torkham Crossing, Afghanistan
Packed vehicles carry Afghan families being forcibly returned from Pakistan.
IOM/Mohammad Osman AziziIncreasingly restrictive policies by the de facto authorities continue to curtail women’s rights and limit the participation of female aid workers, undermining their ability to provide assistance to women and girls. The September 2025 restrictions on national female UN staff entering UN compounds, followed by the late October ban on national female workers at the border reception centre in Islam Qala, Herat, marked a further escalation in an already challenging operating environment. Adding to protection concerns, Afghanistan remains one of the most heavily contaminated countries in the world. Every month, more than 50 civilians, mostly children, are killed or injured by explosive ordnance.
Tense relations with neighbouring countries have led to deadly border clashes with Pakistan and the mass returns of Afghan nationals. In 2025, some 2.2 million people returned from Iran (1.7 million) and Pakistan (500,000) alone, placing additional pressure on already strained communities and humanitarian services.
In 2026, nearly half of Afghanistan’s population - approximately 22 million people – will require humanitarian assistance, reflecting one of the world’s most severe and protracted crises.
Response priorities and financial requirements for 2026
While humanitarian needs in Afghanistan remain entrenched, the overall target of the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) has increased to 17.6 million people – an increase of five per cent compared to 2025. The 2026 HNRP applies a shock-based approach, prioritizing acute needs stemming from drought and other natural disasters, residual needs from the eastern region earthquake, measles and acute watery diarrhea as proxy indicators for high malnutrition and health risks, and areas hosting recent returnees. The approach ensures that the areas of highest severity are prioritized and promotes multi-sectoral interventions that comprehensively address humanitarian needs. Building on the prioritization efforts initiated in 2025, clusters agreed to focus on Strategic Objective 1 (life-saving assistance) and Strategic Objective 2 (protection), while maintaining comparatively limited Strategic Objective 3 activities. The tighter scope of the response further represents a deliberate retraction from interventions that are already incorporated into development-oriented frameworks such as the United Nations Strategic Framework for Afghanistan (UNSFA) and Post-Disaster Needs Assessments.
The HNRP for Afghanistan requires a total of $1.71 billion for 2026, reflecting a 29 per cent decrease compared to the previous year ($2.42 billion). This aligns the plan with the urgently prioritized 2025 HNRP, developed in April 2025 amid the major funding crisis the sector is facing. The reduction reflects significant adjustments across key sectors such as Food Security and Agriculture, WASH, Health and Education, which have lowered their targets, removed certain activities or reduced the scope of interventions, for example, by decreasing rations or scaling down service packages. It also continues the efforts of concentrating humanitarian activities on the most urgent caseloads and takes into account the limited operational capacity resulting from funding shortfalls.
Afghanistan
Women spin wool at a center established through a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) livelihood grant, creating jobs for local women.
UNHCR/Oxygen Empire Media ProductionAs part of the ongoing humanitarian reset and in line with the shock-based approach, Afghanistan’s humanitarian coordination architecture was reviewed and rationalised during 2025. This process consolidated existing Areas of Responsibilities into the Protection and Emergency Shelter - Non-Food Items clusters, streamlined the number of working groups to seven, and maintained flexible sub-national coordination structures to respond rapidly as needs arise. Linkages with basic human needs coordination mechanisms are being formalised through platforms designed to bring sectoral counterparts together.
Since the takeover by the de facto authorities in 2021, an increasingly restrictive regulatory framework has severely affected humanitarian operations and the rights of women and girls. Between 2021 and 2025, 473 directives were issued, 79 specifically targeting female staff and beneficiaries. These measures have curtailed women’s access to education, movement, employment and public participation. Since September 2025, national female staff have been barred from UN offices by the de facto Ministry of Defence, forcing them to work from home. Enforcement of the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue law and other restrictions related to dress code have further constrained women’s movement and participation in aid delivery while increasing administrative burdens on humanitarian organizations. The result is a highly volatile operating environment that undermines principled humanitarian action and threatens to exclude women and girls from assistance.
Afghanistan
2025 in review: Response highlights and consequences of inaction
Response highlights
As of August 2025, humanitarian partners had reached 13.2 million people, representing 79 per cent of the overall target of 16.8 million. Partners delivered at least one form of assistance in every district. At the same time, 2.7 million people, or 45 per cent of the inter-sectoral target of 6 million, received three different types of sectoral support during the first eight months of the year. Food assistance was the largest component of the response, reaching 9 million people (68 per cent of the total reached). Meanwhile, the WASH and Health sectors, each targeting 6 million and 9 million people respectively, achieved 62 per cent and 38 per cent of their targets.
Kunar Province, Afghanistan
After a devastating earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, a female doctor provides care and support to women in the affected community.
IOM/Mina NazariConsequences of funding cuts
Food Assistance
Only around 1 million of the most vulnerable people have received food assistance during the lean season in 2025 compared to 5.6 million assisted during the same period in 2024, unless additional resources are mobilized.
Nutrition
Some 1.1 million children have missed out on life-saving nutrition services in 2025 as 305 nutrition service delivery points have been closed. Each month of delayed funding leaves an additional 170,000 Afghan children without access to life-saving treatment.
Health facilities
422 health facilities were closed in 2025, affecting 3.08 million people without access to life-saving care.
Service delivery points
218 gender-based violence service delivery points were suspended affecting more than 1 million people, especially vulnerable women and girls. Protection services for over 3.3 million people, including more than 1.6 million children, can no longer be provided, including case management, psychological support, emergency victim assistance, explosive ordnance risk education and cash interventions.
Education
Around 145,000 children (87,100 girls) were not able to access education through community-based interventions, and an additional 130,000 children (67,600 girls) were not reached with the second round of teaching and learning materials.
Kunar Province, Afghanistan
Young survivors gather after the earthquake, standing strong despite the devastation.
OCHA/Ahmad Khalid KhaliqiDrought Anticipatory Action Framework in Afghanistan
The Anticipatory Action (AA) Framework for Drought represents a major milestone in advancing forecast-based early humanitarian action in Afghanistan. Coordinated by OCHA under the leadership of the Humanitarian Coordinator, it enables partners to take early, pre-agreed action to mitigate the impact of predictable droughts on vulnerable communities. The framework covers four high-risk, rain-fed provinces, namely Faryab, Sar-e-Pul, Takhar, and Badakhshan, and was developed through a participatory process involving UN agencies and NGOs as part of a technical working group.
This is the first coordinated anticipatory action framework in Afghanistan, and globally one of the first to combine financing from both the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund (AHF). Together, these pooled funds have committed $14 million to support timely interventions once defined trigger thresholds are reached. This ensures predictable, rapid financing, and coordinated response across sectors.
The pre-agreed actions include multi-purpose cash assistance, agricultural and livestock support, food and nutrition assistance, health and protection services, and water and sanitation interventions. Activities are designed to promote dignity, inclusion, and accountability, reflecting community preferences for cash-based assistance and ensuring access for women, children, and persons with disabilities.
A key achievement of the framework was its successful forecast-based activation in spring 2025, ahead of visible drought later in the season. By enabling the timely rollout of anticipatory action interventions, the framework played a critical role in preventing humanitarian consequences across some of the worst-affected areas. As Afghanistan’s first inter-agency anticipatory action framework, it represents an important step toward a more proactive humanitarian system that reduces losses, protects livelihoods, and strengthens community resilience to future droughts.