Attachments
1.1 Background
1.1.1 Geographic and demographic information
Afghanistan is a mountainous landlocked multiethnic country located in the heart of southcentral Asia on the Iranian Plateau. The country is the 40th largest in the world in size. Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan, located in the Kabul province.. On the north, Afghanistan borders Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan; in the east, China; in the west, Iran; and in the south, Pakistan. The total length of the Afghanistan border is 5,987 km (total surface area 647,230 km2), and around 45 percent of that border— 2,670km is with Pakistan. Afghanistan’s border with Iran in the west is 921 km, and it shares a 91 km border with China. The remaining border is northern neighbouring countries. Afghanistan contains most of the Hindu Kush. There are four major rivers in the country: the Amu Darya, the Hari River, the Kabul River and the Helmand River. The country also contains a number of smaller rivers, lakes, and streams. The lowest elevation, Amu Darya, is 846 feet above sea level; the highest peak, in the northern Vakhan Wakhan Corridor, is Noshak at 24,557 feet. The population of Afghanistan is around 41.2 million as of September 20222. The nation is composed of a multiethnic and multilingual society, reflecting its location astride historic trade and invasion routes between Central Asia, South Asia, and Western Asia. Ethnic groups in the country include Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbeks, Nuristanis, Aimaq, Turkmen, Balochand some others which are less known. Together they make up the contemporary Afghan people. Persian (Dari) and Pashto are both the official languages of the country. Dari functions as the inter-ethnic lingua franca for the vast majority. Pashto is widely used in the regions south of the Hindu Kush mountains and as far as the Indus River in neighbouring Pakistan, it is the language with the most native speakers in Afghanistan. Uzbek and Turkmen are smaller languages spoken in parts of the north. Multilingualism is common throughout the country, especially in the major cities. Up to 89.7% of the population practices Sunni Islam and belongs to the Hanafi Islamic law school, while 10–15% are followers of Shia Islam. The remaining 0.3% practices other religions such as Sikhism and Hinduism.
1.1.2 Political and economic situation
The political events of August 15, 2021 triggered a complex economic crisis. This crisis involved several overlapping drivers: the pausing of aid which was a major contributor to the economy, major disruption to basic services (including basic health and education), loss of hard-currency aid inflows, loss of access to overseas assets of the central bank, cessation of international payments by foreign banks which created a liquidity crisis in the banking system which constrained firms and household access to working capital and savings held in commercial banks. The net effect of these changes was a severe economic downturn due to decline in investments, uncertainty and fear and the loss of human capital as tens of thousands of skilled Afghans fled the country and new restrictions were imposed on women’s participation in the private and public sector. According to the Afghanistan Welfare Monitoring Survey (AWMS) conducted by the World Bank over October-December 2021, the combination of declining incomes and increasing prices has led to a severe deterioration in household living standards. Approximately 70 percent of Afghan households had insufficient income to meet basic food and non-food needs. Extreme hardship has led to the widespread adoption of harmful coping mechanisms such as borrowing at high interest rates, the sale or consumption of assets, and reduced investment in human capital.
1.1.3 Humanitarian situation
Afghanistan is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. On top of an already dire situation following 40 years of war, economic decline, price increases, and rising poverty, the worst drought in 27 years, the withdrawal of international forces and the takeover of the country by the Taliban in August 2021, an estimated 24.4 million people – 58 per cent of the population need humanitarian assistance in 2022, a staggering 32 per cent increase from last 20217 . According to the Afghanistan IPC food insecurity analysis in May 2022, 18.9 million people were projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above) between June and November 2022. Although the IPC analysis for 2022 indicated a marginal reduction of the population facing high and critical level of acute food insecurity compared to 2021, the persistence of food insecurity is due to a combination of a successive series of droughts, rising food prices, effects of decades of conflict and the economic collapse due to the political transition. In the projected period between June and November 2022, harvest was expected to allow a minimal improvement in food availability and access, from 19.7 million people facing acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 and above) to 18.9 million.
The 2022 Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) also identified the key drivers of the catastrophic humanitarian situation as the intensification of the violence throughout 2021, a consecutive year of drought, other natural disasters, the COVID-19 global outbreak, and the broad-based economic crisis that has pushed many people into extreme poverty. With coping mechanisms and safety nets largely exhausted, the collapse of basic services and development programming since August 2021 has left many people reliant on development assistance.