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Afghanistan

Afghanistan: IPC Acute Food Insecurity Snapshot l September 2024 - March 2025

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Overview

Afghanistan continues to experience marginal improvement in the food security situation since 2021, despite facing a series of significant challenges over the past few years. These include the political transition in August 2021, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and multiple natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, and droughts. Additionally, the country is managing the influx of Afghan returnees from neighbouring regions, all of which continue to strain resources and impact food security.

In the current period (September to October 2024), an estimated 11.6 million people (25 percent of the total population) are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity, classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse) and are in urgent need of humanitarian food assistance. Of these, about 1.8 million people (4 percent of the total population) are in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency) and around 9.8 million people (21 percent of the total population) are in IPC Phase 3 (Crisis). Out of the 34 provinces analysed, 31 are classified in Phase 3, while only three—Paktya, Khost and Ghazni—are classified in IPC Phase 2 (Stressed). This slight improvement in the food security situation can be attributed to improved agricultural production, the scale of humanitarian food and emergency agricultural assistance in 2023/2024 and improved household purchasing power.

Despite improvements compared to previous analyses, the projection period (November 2024 to March 2025), which coincides with the peak of the lean season, will see14.8 million people (32 percent of the total population) classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse). This includes 3.1 million people (7 percent of the total population) classified in Phase 4 and 11.6 million (25 percent of the total population) in Phase 3. Overall, the number of people projected to be food insecure would be 1.1 million fewer than during the same period last year (November 2023 to March 2024), including half a million fewer people in Phase 4. This slight improvement in the food security situation can be attributed, among other factors, to the humanitarian food and emergency agricultural assistance and above-average agricultural harvests during the 2024 season.

Since the end of 2021 when food insecurity peaked with 22.8 million people classified in IPC Phase 3 or above, after the political transition and the economic turmoil, households have continued to report improvements in their capacity to meet basic needs. However, food prices currently are still higher than the long-term average, including levels seen before COVID-19 and while the 2024 wheat harvests were above average, their yield still fell short of national levels, indicating a need for wheat imports or complementary humanitarian food assistance.