Afghanistan: The Cost of Inaction (November 2024)

THE HUMANITARIAN SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN

Over three years on from the Taliban takeover, more than half the population – 23.7 million people, including 9.2 million children – remain in need of humanitarian assistance. Recovery from 40 years of conflict and entrenched poverty is increasingly challenged by stubbornly high-levels of food insecurity and malnutrition, protracted displacement, widespread explosive ordnance contamination, recurrent natural disasters, communicable disease outbreaks, climate change effects, political estrangement and heavily conditioned aid, and increasingly – since August 2021 – the imposition by the de facto authorities (DfA) of ever-more restrictive policies on women and girls’ rights and basic freedoms which have hindered their access to assistance and services, and involvement in public life.