Afghanistan: Humanitarian Access Snapshot (February 2025)

Humanitarian partners continue to face significant operational constraints in Afghanistan; in February 2025, they reported 70[1] access incidents. This represents a notable decrease of 51 percent compared to the previous month and a 56 percent decrease compared to the same period last year. The decrease in reported incidents this month does not indicate that all access issues are resolved. Instead, it reflects under-reporting because of the closure of most offices and the suspension of their operations. Since fewer offices were working, fewer incidents were reported. These incidents most impacted the Southeastern, Southern, and Central regions, with the highest number of incidents.

The U.S. funding freeze had a significant impact on humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, where millions of people depend on assistance, including food, shelter, and health services. Since the funding freeze began in January 2025, many national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), along with UN agencies, had to close their offices across various regions of Afghanistan because of the funding shortfall. Overall, during this period, humanitarian partners reported nine offices closed and suspended their operations in Balkh, Hilmand, Khost, Faryab, Kunduz, Ghazni and Takhar provinces because of funding challenges.

Interference in implementing humanitarian activities remained a major challenge in 2025, with 50 access incidents reported. De facto Authorities (DfAs) directly interfered in a significant number of these incidents, while the funding freeze also indirectly impacted humanitarian activities across various regions of Afghanistan, leading to additional challenges.These incidents include delays/issues with Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing, interference with programming, including unannounced visits to offices by department of Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) and other line departments and suspension of humanitarian activities, interference with staff recruitment, and requesting sensitive data, including lists of employees, budget details, staff salaries, and detailed procurement information.

In February 2025, there were seven incidents of violence targeting humanitarian personnel, assets, and facilities. These incidents led to the detention of five humanitarian workers, including two female staff members, and warnings to humanitarian aid staff about following the morality law. During this period, ongoing military operations because of the border clashes, two incidents resulted in the temporary suspension of health facility activities in the area. Flash floods and physical environment incidents in February also disrupted the humanitarian response, preventing aid workers from reaching those in need.

In February, the de facto authorities (DfAs) issued two directives primarily aimed at reinforcing existing procedures. These directives included insisting on visits to humanitarian partners offices and requesting the sharing of sensitive information.

[1] The access incidents are reported to the Access Monitoring and Reporting Framework (AMRF) either directly by humanitarian partners to OCHA or through the cluster coordinators and working groups, and DSS.