Afghanistan: Humanitarian Update, May 2023

HIGHLIGHTS

Aid agencies release a revised response plan for June to December
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Sustained assistance needed to stop hunger and malnutrition from deteriorating further
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The United Nations will not waver in its commitment to support the people of Afghanistan
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Spring Season Response
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Lumpy Skin Disease vaccination targets 3.9 million livestock
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AID AGENCIES RELEASE A REVISED RESPONSE PLAN FOR JUNE TO DECEMBER

Afghanistan remains the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and the situation worsened in the first half of the year with the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance increasing by half a million from 28.3 million at the beginning of 2023 to 28.8 million by the end of May.

However, in response to the changing operating context and notwithstanding the unprecedented and severe levels of need, aid agencies have reprioritized and released a revised Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) covering the period between June and December this year. The revised response plan reflects a number of factors currently impacting humanitarian delivery in Afghanistan today including underfunding, partner capacity to deliver, the changing operating environment (including the restrictions imposed by the Taliban de-facto authorities on Afghan women working for the UN and I/NGOs), the latest food insecurity projections, and a focus on the most vulnerable population groups, among others.

For the remainder of 2023 - that is between June and December - the revised HRP requires US$2.26 billion to assist 20 million people with multisectoral assistance. With a carry-over from 2022 of $850 million plus the funding received thus far in 2023, a considerably broad reach has been achieved between January and May, bringing up the full-year HRP costs to $3.2 billion.

It is worth noting that the revised Response Plan is not a reflection of an improvement in the humanitarian situation but an outcome of a reprioritization to maximize cost efficiencies informed by the factors mentioned above. Humanitarian needs remain high and widespread in Afghanistan and their drivers have not abated. People’s needs remain significant across all sectors and throughout the country.

Life-saving sectors such as Food, Health and Nutrition comprise more than 70 per cent of the revised Response Plan requirements. Most activities in these sectors are largely not challenged by the ban on women aid workers and they have recorded an increase in uptake. For example, the health sector has recorded a 24 per cent increased uptake in health-seeking behaviour notably among women and girls while malnutrition treatment witnessed a 44 per cent increase in severe acute malnutrition (SAM), 11 per cent in moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) under five and 27 per cent in pregnant and breastfeeding women with MAM in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.

Underfunding is one of the major challenges impacting partners’ capacity to scale up humanitarian response across all clusters. Aid agencies call on donors to provide the financial resources required to enable partners to maintain the aid operation to the extent possible.