Summary of needs
WASH needs in Afghanistan’s remain severe, in 2026, an estimated 15.9 million people in Afghanistan will require WASH assistance due to overlapping shocks, including large-scale returns, drought, AWD with Dehydration /cholera outbreaks, recurrent floods, and earthquakes. Seasonal hazards remain cyclical, with spring floods damaging water supply systems, summer AWD peaks, straining water quality, and winter water shortages disproportionately affecting high-altitude areas. WASH vulnerabilities in Afghanistan continue to be shaped by intersecting humanitarian and climate pressures that are eroding resilience at both community and system levels According to the Whole of Afghanistan Assessment (WoAA 2025), 85% of households experienced at least one environmental hazard (up from 77% in 2024), with 67% reporting drought and widespread water scarcity. Households prioritizing water for drinking and hygiene rose to 37% (from 26%), highlighting deteriorating access and affordability. Service trends show mixed progress: reliance on unimproved water sources decreased to 25%, and improved sanitation coverage increased to 83%, yet 37% of households lack soap, reflecting affordability gaps and supply constraints. WoAA 2025 further highlights the widening rural and urban divide, urban areas show marginal infrastructure recovery, while rural households experience both distance and affordability barriers. Female headed households are more likely to rely on unprotected sources, while only 41% of households with a disabled member report access to an accessible latrine. Seasonal vulnerability remains pronounced, spring floods repeatedly contaminate and damage surface-water systems, summer heatwaves drive AWD peaks, and winter freezes restrict access in high-altitude provinces such as Bamyan and Daykundi. This cyclical pattern underscores the need for integrated seasonal preparedness across clusters.
Drought-affected areas increasingly report non-functional or dried water points, particularly impacting rural population, displaced, and female-headed households. Economic pressures marked by a 13% decline in household income and a 30% rise in debt further undermine WASH affordability and drive negative coping strategies. Access restrictions, especially for female staff, continue to impede gender-responsive programming and limit safe access for women and girls. The highest severity of WASH needs is observed in the north/northwest (Badghis, Faryab, Jawzjan, Samangan, Balkh, Sar-e-Pul), west (Herat, Ghor), east/southeast (Nangarhar, Khost, Paktya), and central highlands (Bamyan, Daykundi). Drought conditions now affecting over 2/3 of provinces have pushed communities beyond recovery thresholds. 2025 was marked by intensified climatic variability which includes multi-year rainfall deficits in the north and west combined with unseasonal flash floods in the east have disrupted the hydrological cycle, accelerating groundwater depletion and sedimentation of shallow wells. The WASH Cluster’s risk analysis further reveals an emerging dual burden, provinces simultaneously facing drought and disease transmission risks. Herat, Badghis, and Faryab illustrate this pattern recording below-average rainfall and repeated AWD alerts. while newly displaced populations in the east are concentrated in water-stressed districts where existing systems were designed for half the current population. The humanitarian caseload is therefore expanding in both size and severity, with returnee hosting areas such as Herat, Nangahar, Nimroz and Khost facing such double pressure, hosting inflows and exhibiting rapid service deterioration and tensions over shared water points creating pockets of concentrated need that outpace service delivery capacity. Drought remains a major aggravating factor across 123 districts, significantly reducing water availability for households and increasing reliance on unsafe sources. This results in higher incidence of waterborne diseases, directly contributing to acute malnutrition. These trends underscore the need for integrated WASH and nutrition interventions in high-risk districts, particularly those projected to worsen into 2026, including Zabul, Daykundi, Helmand, Kandahar, Nuristan, Uruzgan, Paktika, and Faryab.
FAO reports indicate rainfall deficits comparable to 2024, resulting in drying wells and degraded pastures, while REACH WoAA data reveal that 18% of households lack sufficient drinking water and 32% rely on unimproved sources, with conditions most critical among rural, displaced, and female-headed households. Chronic underfunding has hampered the repair and operation of damaged water supply infrastructure, construction of new water supply in the underserved districts straining water supply systems in returnee-hosting districts and leaving persons with disabilities and older adults facing additional barriers due to inaccessible facilities. Without early and flexible funding, Afghanistan faces a heightened risk of WASH system collapse, disease resurgence, and increased protection risks, potentially reversing progress made through 2024 to 2025. The drought and dry-spell monitoring report of May 2025 confirmed critically low soil-moisture levels across 23 provinces (30-60% below average in the north and west), indicating prolonged stress on aquifers that serve as the main drinking water source for rural populations. This environmental degradation, coupled with underinvestment in operations and maintenance, has resulted in functionality rates of rural water schemes dropping below 60% in high severity districts. Seasonal flooding compounds this degradation. Flash floods in Nangarhar, Kunar, and Laghman repeatedly destroy shallow wells and contaminate surface sources, creating cyclical AWD outbreaks immediately after the dry season.
The IPC AMN 2025 analysis indicates a significant deterioration in nutrition outcomes, with 3.7 million children under five and 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women requiring immediate treatment. WASH deprivations are identified as key underlying drivers of acute malnutrition, particularly recurrent AWD outbreaks, limited water availability for hygiene, and unsafe sanitation conditions. In provinces such as Zabul, Daykundi, Helmand, Kandahar, Kunduz, Nuristan, and Uruzgan, rising GAM and SAM rates are directly associated with inadequate access to safe drinking water, poor handwashing practices, and contamination of household water sources during drought and flooding periods. The analysis shows that 81% of acute malnutrition cases are concentrated in 15 priority provinces that overlap with WASH Severity 4 districts, demonstrating a strong geographic and causal convergence between WASH needs and nutrition deterioration. Seasonal trends indicate that the peak period of acute malnutrition aligns with AWD seasonality (June–September), highlighting the heightened exposure to waterborne diseases caused by poor water quality and unsafe sanitation. Access constraints, particularly for women caregivers, further limit timely use of essential health, WASH, and nutrition services.
Economic fragility continues to magnify these WASH challenges. 13% drop in household income and the 30% increase in debt have directly reduced family’s ability to purchase water, soap, and hygiene materials. Women and girls increasingly report limiting water consumption and hygiene practices, raising protection and health risks. The Climate Vulnerability Assessment 2025 classifies 18 provinces as “very high risk,” where recurrent drought, asset depletion, and restricted female mobility converge to heighten needs. These conditions particularly disadvantage female headed households and people with disabilities, who are least able to pay for alternative water supply or repair damaged infrastructure.
Gender and social dynamics continue to shape exposure and access. Cultural restrictions on female field workers hinder direct engagement with women in hygiene promotion, leaving critical information gaps. In many provinces, women still travel long distances, often at night to fetch water, exposing them to protection incidents. Adolescent girls face recurring school absenteeism due to inadequate menstrual hygiene facilities. Persons with disabilities and the elderly report exclusion from communal water points, emphasizing the importance of inclusive WASH design. These barriers underscore the structural inequality embedded in service access. Overall, the severity and depth of WASH needs have not abated. Rather, climatic intensification, declining household income, and reduced partner coverage in hard-to-reach districts have deepened deprivation levels.
The projected 15.9 million people in need in 2026 reflects a combination of deepening structural stress and recurrent climatic shocks. While slight gains in sanitation coverage were recorded in 2025, the sustainability of these improvements is fragile. The persistence of drought reduced groundwater recharge, and damage to piped networks risk reversing progress achieved under the 2024/2025 response. Unless anticipatory measures and early financing are activated, Afghanistan will face another cycle of large-scale water shortages, disease resurgence, and deterioration of basic public health conditions during 2026.
Response strategy
The 2026 WASH Cluster response will focus on mitigating life-threatening water, sanitation, and hygiene gaps in areas most affected by drought, AWD with Dehydration /cholera outbreaks, floods, earthquakes, and large-scale returns, while upholding public health and dignity. The strategy targets 7.8. million people (including 6.3 million core) out of 15.9 million people in need (40% from Severity 4 and 60% from Severity 3), under a total funding requirement of US$163 million. Building on 2025 lessons, the Cluster will continue a dual approach combining life-saving emergency response with systems strengthening. Immediate priorities include 1) Rehabilitation/Construction and repair of damaged water and sanitation systems, 2) Provision of emergency WASH services for returnees, displaced populations, and host communities under acute stress, 3) Rapid response to AWD with Dehydration /cholera outbreaks through case-area targeted interventions (CATIs), water chlorination, and hygiene promotion, and 4) Winterization preparedness and prepositioning of critical WASH supplies in high-risk areas to sustain access during seasonal shocks. Sustaining functionality will require investment in operation and maintenance (O&M), water quality surveillance, and community-based management mechanisms to prevent WASH service collapse. The 2026 strategy will emphasize flexible, integrated delivery mechanisms tailored to distinct risk environments.
In drought-affected regions, interventions will focus on climate-resilient water solutions such as groundwater protection, recharge structures and construction of strategic water supply systems. Targeting will prioritize populations most exposed/vulnerable populations or groups to compounding shocks. IDPs and returnees in water-stressed or disaster-affected districts; female-headed households; persons with disabilities; and communities hosting multiple displacement waves. In addition, special consideration will be given to households with malnourished children under treatment, schools without gender-segregated sanitation, and health facilities lacking safe water systems. Geographic prioritization aligns with ICCT boundary settings and severity mapping, concentrating efforts in the northwest drought corridor (Badghis, Faryab, Balkh, and Sar-e-Pul), returnee hosting areas of Herat and Nangarhar, and the flood-prone eastern provinces. Cross-cutting priorities emphasize safe, equitable access for women, girls, and persons with disabilities through gender-segregated facilities, female staff engagement, and inclusive design.
The strategy is further shaped by the IPC Acute Malnutrition 2025 findings, which highlight a sharp deterioration in nutrition outcomes linked directly to WASH needs. With 3.7 million children under five and 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women acutely malnourished, and 81% of cases concentrated in provinces such as Zabul, Daykundi, Helmand, Kandahar, Kunduz, Nuristan, Uruzgan, Paktika, and Faryab, the Cluster will prioritize integrated WASH and nutrition programming. This includes intensified water safety measures, expanded water quality testing, and CATI deployments in nutrition hotspot districts where AWD outbreaks have shown a direct correlation with rising Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) and Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) trends. In stabilization centres and health facilities, the Cluster will scale up safe water provision, functional sanitation, menstrual hygiene management support, and infection prevention and control (IPC) measures to reduce pathogen exposure for malnourished children and women. Community-level hygiene promotion will incorporate tailored messaging for caregivers of children under five, emphasizing safe water handling, hygienic feeding practices, and household-level chlorination. Given the strong seasonal overlap between AWD peaks (June–September) and deterioration in GAM levels, the Cluster will pre-position chlorine, test kits, filters, and IPC supplies in high-risk provinces to enable rapid outbreak containment.
Complementarity with Basic Human Needs (BHN) interventions will be achieved through joint planning/ coordination with Health, Nutrition, and Food Security clusters to ensure simultaneous access to water, hygiene, food, and healthcare services. The Cluster will strengthen coordination with Health, Nutrition, and Protection partners to reduce disease and protection risks. This linkage will enable households to transition from short-term humanitarian support toward early recovery and self-reliance. In communities where humanitarian caseloads overlap with development actors, the Cluster will coordinate with BHN partners and national WASH authorities to integrate operation and maintenance (O&M) systems into existing rural water frameworks, ensuring longer-term functionality.
The WASH Cluster will continue to operationalize anticipatory action and scenario-based contingency plans, triggered by early warning indicators such as rainfall deficits, AWD alerts, and cross-border return movements. Pre-positioned emergency stocks and flexible funding lines will allow partners to respond rapidly to new shocks while minimizing service interruptions. Strategic coordination with the Health Cluster’s early outbreak detection and the Shelter/NFI Cluster’s winterization strategy will reinforce joint readiness. Through this integrated, adaptive approach, the WASH Cluster aims not only to address immediate humanitarian needs but also to stabilize local systems, reduce dependency, and strengthen resilience across drought and flood-prone regions of Afghanistan.
Sustaining functionality will require investment in operation and maintenance, water quality surveillance and community-based management to prevent service collapse. In drought-affected regions, interventions will focus on climate-resilient water solutions such as groundwater protection, recharge structures and strategic water supply systems. These climate-resilient WASH interventions directly support the BHN response by ensuring sustained access to safe and reliable water, reducing household vulnerabilities, and strengthening the foundation for more predictable multi-sector service delivery. Cross-cutting priorities include safe and equitable access for women, girls and persons with disabilities through gender-segregated facilities, engagement of female staff and inclusive design. The Cluster will also strengthen coordination with health, nutrition and protection partners to reduce disease and protection risks.
Target and prioritisation
The 2026 WASH Cluster response will target 7.8 million people (including 6.3 million core) out of 15.9 million people in need, focusing on districts classified as Severity 4 and 3 under the WASH Cluster 2026 analysis. Prioritization is guided by the boundary-setting framework, severity mapping, and multi-sector risk analysis, emphasizing areas affected by drought, AWD with Dehydration /cholera outbreaks, floods, earthquakes, and large-scale returns. Within these, sub-districts hosting returnees, protracted IDPs, and disaster-affected populations will receive priority assistance. The Cluster will also maintain readiness to respond to new or emerging shocks and prepositioned contingency stocks. 316 priority districts have been identified, of which 86 fall under Severity 4 and 230 under Severity 3 levels of WASH need. Geographically, the northern and western drought corridors covering Badghis, Faryab, Sar-e-Pul, Ghor, and Herat remain the epicenter of chronic water scarcity and non-functional systems. Eastern and southeastern provinces such as Nangarhar, Kunar, Khost, and Paktika face compound shocks of flood contamination and large-scale returns, while the central highlands (Bamyan and Daykundi) continue to experience seasonal water shortages due to freezing and topographic isolation. Urban and peri-urban districts hosting high returnee concentrations, particularly in Herat City and Jalalabad, are also prioritized for infrastructure rehabilitation to prevent service collapse
Population targeting prioritizes rural and peri-urban communities with limited or collapsed WASH systems, returnees and IDPs, and female-headed or disability-affected households facing access barriers. Areas with high AWD with Dehydration /cholera cases and protection risks for women and girls are given priority. Within these, the Cluster will target health facilities, schools, and informal settlements to ensure minimum public-health coverage. Severity and vulnerability mapping will guide resource allocation at provincial and district levels through the Joint Inter-Cluster Targeting Framework.
Additional emphasis on districts where WASH and acute malnutrition vulnerabilities overlap, as identified in the IPC 2025 analysis. Provinces with the highest burden of acute malnutrition such as Zabul, Daykundi, Helmand, Kandahar, Kunduz, Nuristan, Uruzgan, and projected hotspots Paktika and Faryab will receive priority due to the clear linkage between unsafe water, inadequate hygiene, AWD cases, and rising GAM/SAM levels. In these areas, households often ration water for hygiene during drought, increasing infection risks that directly worsen nutrition outcomes, especially among children under five and pregnant and breastfeeding women. The Cluster will integrate nutrition sensitive criteria into geographic prioritization, ensuring that communities with high numbers of malnourished children, stabilization centers, and areas with recurring AWD outbreaks receive urgent WASH support. Special attention will be given to female-headed households and caregivers of malnourished children, who face disproportionate challenges in accessing safe water and sanitation services due to economic decline and mobility restrictions.
If the Cluster receives 50% of the required funding (US$81.7 million), only 3.9 million people could be reached with minimum life-saving support, leaving over 7 million unassisted. At 25% funding (US$40.9 million), assistance would reach around 1.95 million people, risking system collapse, increased disease outbreaks, malnutrition, and displacement. If under-funding persists, the Cluster will activate a phased reduction plan prioritizing:1) water supply interventions ensuring minimum survival quantities; 2) disease containment in AWD/cholera outbreaks;3) WASH services in health and nutrition facilities; and 4) winterization preparedness in high-altitude provinces. Activities with medium-term developmental value such as system upgrading and groundwater recharge will be postponed until additional resources are mobilized. Regular reassessment through the WASH Severity Analysis 2026 and REACH monitoring rounds will enable dynamic reprioritization based on evolving conditions. This adaptive prioritization model ensures that available resources are channeled where the humanitarian impact is greatest, maintaining lifesaving coverage while preserving readiness for early recovery once funding and access improve.
Promoting accountable, quality and inclusive programming
The WASH Cluster will continue promoting accountable, inclusive, and quality programming to ensure that life-saving assistance reaches those most in need while upholding humanitarian principles and Do No Harm commitments. Accountability to Affected People (AAP) will be integrated across the response cycle through community engagement, participatory assessments, monitoring of the interventions and feedback mechanisms, enabling affected populations particularly women and marginalized groups to influence WASH planning and service delivery.
Given ongoing access restrictions on female staff, the cluster will prioritize advocacy and operational arrangements to enable women’s safe participation in planning, hygiene promotion, monitoring, and feedback activities. Partners will implement gender-segregated WASH facilities and promote the active involvement of women in community WASH committees to enhance privacy, safety, management and ownership.
The response will adopt inclusive design principles, ensuring WASH facilities are accessible to people with disabilities, older adults, and children. Partner capacity-building will emphasize gender, disability inclusion, protection mainstreaming, and community-led operation and maintenance to sustain functionality and equity.
Quality assurance will be strengthened through technical standards, water quality monitoring, and adherence to WASH cluster guidance on minimum service levels and accountability benchmarks. Real-time data collection through 5Ws, cholera dashboards, and monitoring tools will support adaptive management and early corrective action.
Localization remains a key pillar, with increased engagement of national and local NGOs in decision-making and implementation to ensure context-appropriate, culturally sensitive delivery. This approach aims to reinforce trust, accountability, and resilience within communities affected by recurrent WASH crises.
Links to basic services and basic human needs (BHN) programmes
The WASH Cluster’s 2026 strategy recognizes that achieving sustainable access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene goes beyond emergency delivery, it requires deliberate integration with basic service systems and Basic Human Needs (BHN) programming. In Afghanistan’s protracted crisis, where recurrent droughts, disease outbreaks, and mass returns continually strain local infrastructure, linking humanitarian action to system restoration is critical to preventing cyclical emergencies and reinforcing long-term resilience. The Cluster’s approach therefore aims to ensure that humanitarian WASH interventions act as an entry point for recovery and development. Emergency rehabilitation of water and sanitation systems will be closely aligned with the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) and WASH partners led national water supply programmes. This will enable repaired and solarized boreholes, spring fed networks, and piped systems established under humanitarian response to transition into community or government managed schemes.
The integration of climate resilient designs such as groundwater recharge structures, water harvesting, and solar pumping will also help reduce future reliance on costly water trucking and short-term emergency measures. Strengthening local institutional capacity lies at the centre of this linkage. Through the engagement of I/NNGOs, water user associations, and community WASH committees, the Cluster will promote inclusive management structures that ensure women, youth, and persons with disabilities have a role in planning and oversight. Capacity development initiatives for local authorities and service providers will focus on maintenance planning, spare parts supply chains, financial accountability, and data reporting. This approach will gradually re-establish local ownership of service delivery and improve accountability at the community level.
The WASH response will also be woven into broader public service systems. Coordination with the Health and Nutrition clusters will ensure that water quality, sanitation, and hygiene services in health facilities meet infection prevention and control (IPC) standards, directly reducing waterborne disease incidence. Collaboration with the Education Cluster will support gender segregated sanitation facilities and menstrual hygiene management (MHM) services in schools, helping sustain girls attendance and overall child wellbeing. In parallel, synergies with the Food Security and Agriculture Cluster (FSAC) will support the rehabilitation of irrigation and water harvesting systems that improve water security and protect livelihoods in drought affected areas.
Cost of response
Underfunding the WASH response in 2026 will drive avoidable morbidity, mortality, and multi-sector setbacks. The HNRP projects 15.9M people in need, with 7.8M targeted (6.3M core) against a US$ 163M requirement. At 50% funding (US$81.7M), partners could reach 3.9M people with minimum life-saving support, leaving 7M+ exposed to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation, sustaining AWD/cholera transmission and forcing deprioritization of trucking, hygiene promotion, and emergency repairs.
At 25% funding (US$40.9M), assistance would cover 1.95M people, precipitating collapse of community WASH systems, sharp disease resurgence, and severe protection risks for women and girls as water collection times and distances increase. The WASH Cluster risk analysis anticipates major displacement linked to water scarcity and livelihood loss under such low-funding scenarios, alongside worsening malnutrition due to waterborne disease and reduced service functionality.
Inaction will also erode community resilience, drive higher medium-term response costs, and reverse fragile gains across Health, Nutrition, Protection, and Education. Notably, 2026 PiN/targets reflect constrained planning parameters due to anticipated funding shortfalls rather than the full magnitude of needs reinforcing the imperative for early, flexible funding to stabilize systems, curb outbreaks, and protect dignity at scale.
Cluster Severity and PiN Calculation Methodology
The WASH Cluster adopted a systematic, evidence-based methodology to determine severity of needs and estimate the number of people in need (PiN) of WASH assistance for 2026. The analysis follows the Joint Intersectoral Analytical Framework (JIAF 2.0) and integrates both household and system-level data to ensure that interventions are targeted toward populations facing the most critical needs. Severity classification was performed at the district level using 3 primary indicators: 1) availability of soap and water for handwashing; 2) access to adequate quality and quantity of water for domestic use; and 3) access to functional and improved sanitation facilities. Each indicator was scored on a 1–5 scale reflecting the degree of service deprivation from “None/Minimal” to “Collapse.” District composite scores were calculated through a weighted average approach, with thresholds defined as follows; 20% representing Severity Level 1, 20–40% as Severity Level 2, 40–60% as Severity Level 3, 60–80% as Severity Level 4, and greater than 80% corresponding to Severity Level 5.Districts scoring above 3.0 were classified as high severity, corresponding to Severity Levels 3–4.
To improve analytical accuracy, the severity calculations were triangulated with secondary data sources, including MRRD’s water coverage mapping, Whole of Afghanistan Assessment (WoAA), and 2025 AWD/cholera surveillance from WHO and the Health Information Management System. Gender and protection considerations were incorporated through perception-based data on women’s safety when accessing WASH facilities. Prevalence of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) among children under five from the Nutrition Cluster served as an indirect proxy for WASH-related disease exposure.
The PiN estimation aggregated population data from the ICCT boundary-setting exercise and applied proportional weights based on severity. Populations residing in Severity 3–4 districts were considered in need, with adjustments for displacement, returnee density, and demographic vulnerability (female-headed households, persons with disabilities, elderly). This produced an estimated 15.9 million people in need of WASH assistance for 2026, of which 7.8 million are targeted for response. Historical trend analysis (2021–2025) and seasonality modeling were applied to anticipate the likely progression of WASH needs under recurring shocks such as drought, flooding, and AWD outbreaks.
Despite these improvements, significant data gaps remain in inaccessible districts, informal settlements, and areas were restrictions on female limit field validation. To mitigate these, the Cluster will strengthen the integration of REACH remote monitoring, MRRD data, and the WASH cluster data to enhance data coverage, validation, and comparability across partners. This refined methodology ensures that WASH severity and PiN calculations are both technically robust and operationally relevant, providing a solid evidence base for prioritization, funding advocacy, and multi-sector coordination under the 2026 Humanitarian Programme Cycle.
Needs Analysis, Response Monitoring Strategy and Data Gaps
The WASH Cluster will enhance its 2026 needs analysis and response monitoring framework through a strengthened evidence-based and adaptive approach, ensuring that programming remains responsive to evolving contextual dynamics and operational constraints. Building on lessons from 2025, the Cluster will integrate multiple data sources such as REACH assessments, WoAA, Health Cluster AWD/cholera surveillance, and partner 5Ws to provide a consolidated picture of needs and response coverage. The methodology will apply the updated JIAF 2.0 analytical structure, emphasizing triangulation between household, facility, and system-level indicators to improve geographic precision and population targeting. To address data collection limitations in hard-to-reach and female-restricted areas, the Cluster will expand the use of remote and proxy monitoring tools, including phone-based surveys, community enumerators, and satellite-based water source monitoring. Partnerships with national NGOs and women-led community groups will be scaled up to sustain gender-balanced data collection, leveraging trusted local actors to maintain access and contextual accuracy. Complementary partnerships with technical agencies will enable the integration of WASH functionality data, water quality surveillance, and early warning indicators into routine monitoring cycles.
Monitoring of Accountability to Affected People (AAP) and cross-cutting priorities, including gender, disability inclusion, and Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) will be institutionalized across the response cycle. This includes deploying gender-sensitive monitoring tools, integrating PSEA focal points into cluster coordination mechanisms, and ensuring community feedback loops are systematically captured and acted upon. Feedback mechanisms, such as complaint boxes, hotline reporting, and focus group discussions will directly inform mid-year reviews and corrective actions, ensuring community perspectives influence cluster strategy updates.
Given the complex operational environment and constraints posed by sanctions, restrictions on female participation, and fragmented service delivery, the Cluster will intensify engagement with line ministries and through coordinated advocacy led by the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT). This will facilitate predictable access for WASH assessments, improve MOUs approvals, and allow for gender-sensitive data collection while safeguarding neutrality and humanitarian principles. To strengthen accountability and transparency, the WASH Cluster will maintain a unified monitoring and reporting dashboard integrating 5Ws, financial tracking, and severity updates. Partners will report monthly on output and outcome indicators, feeding into quarterly analytical briefs that measure progress against cluster objectives. Technical working groups will validate data through peer review and triangulation with external sources such as MRRD datasets and the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund (AHF) monitoring missions.
Persistent data gaps remain in sanitation coverage for informal settlements, small-scale rural systems functionality, and accessibility conditions for people with disabilities. Insecurity, access restrictions, and the limited presence of female enumerators continue to restrict direct observation in several provinces. To mitigate these, the Cluster will pilot the use of localized data hubs and predictive modeling to estimate service functionality and population exposure in inaccessible areas. Moreover, the WASH Information Management System will consolidate partner data streams, enabling near-real-time tracking of service disruptions and hazard-related risks. By adopting these adaptive monitoring mechanisms, the WASH Cluster aims to ensure a more accurate and inclusive picture of WASH needs and response impact throughout 2026, allowing for timely course corrections, improved accountability, and informed decision-making across all levels of coordination.
