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“Today, by the grace of God, there is no war in our country, but other problems have replaced it, such as poverty, unemployment, returnees, and migration, as well as homelessness because of floods, and people are in need of health centres and other services.” (FGD 15/12/2025)
OVERVIEW
Households in Baghlan-e-Jadid and Burka have faced steadily increasing challenges meeting basic needs in recent years, particularly the last 12 months, driven by recurrent and severe flooding, prolonged drought, and a large influx of returnees from abroad (EI 01/02/2026; EI 22/10/2026; EI 26/01/2026 a; EI 26/01/2026 b; EI 02/02/2026; EI 03/02/2026 b). Such returnees quintupled in 2025 alone across Baghlan province, from around 42,100 to 214,200, with Baghlan-e-Jadid hosting the ninth-highest number (49,860) across Afghanistan’s districts (IOM 24/02/2026 b). The expanding population significantly increases pressure on limited housing stock, overstretched basic services, and livelihood opportunities in these highly agricultural districts, which are also struggling to recover from prolonged drought and major flooding in 2024 and 2025, alongside the November 2025 earthquake. In this increasingly pressured context, households in Baghlan-e-Jadid and Burka districts face significant unmet needs, with electricity, water, healthcare, and shelter needs cited as major challenges for all community members. Returnees were identified as experiencing particularly severe food and shelter needs, along with highly limited access to basic services. To cope with these unmet needs, households are increasingly employing coping strategies with potentially harmful consequences, which are linked with varied protection risks. While both men and women have adopted positive coping strategies with some success, mainly through livelihood diversification, this study identified significant reliance on coping strategies with potentially harmful consequences in the short, medium, and longer term.
ABOUT THIS REPORT
This report is part of a series on localised vulnerability in Afghanistan, made possible with the support and coordination of the Afghanistan Protection Cluster and its members. The purpose of a localised approach is to identify location-specific causes and manifestations of vulnerability to unmet needs and better understand how people experience and mitigate them. The series on localised vulnerability also includes districts in Herat, Samangan, and Nangarhar (forthcoming) provinces.
Aim
This report aims to support operational responders to identify programming priorities and potential entry points for improving the design and targeting of humanitarian activities by doing the following: • providing insight into possible drivers of multi-dimensional vulnerability • revealing context-specific perceptions of what makes certain people more vulnerable to unmet basic needs • enhancing understanding of the different coping strategies that communities and households use to mitigate vulnerability.
Methodology and limitations
Data for this study was collected in the neighbouring Baghlan-e-Jadid and Burka districts in Baghlan province, northeastern Afghanistan. The findings presented here are based on primary data collected by Protection Cluster partners and ACAPS. Secondary data was used to inform the selection of localised vulnerability analysis locations, design the data collection tools, and triangulate and substantiate findings from interviews.