Attachments
Executive Summary
Introduction
This evaluation examines UNICEF’s Level 3 response to the humanitarian emergency in Afghanistan, which lasted between September 2021 and June 2023. The evaluation covers the period from August 2021, when the Taliban seized power, to March 2023.
The arrival of the Taliban in power added considerable complexity to a protracted humanitarian situation in which humanitarian needs were acute among the majority of the population, and conditions for programme delivery highly challenging. In the days and weeks that followed this event, a plausible and widely held assumption was that systems of governance and basic service provision would collapse, and expose an already highly vulnerable population to further risk and hardship.
The L3 Corporate Emergency activated by UNICEF on 8 September 2021 provided the basis for an operational ramp-up whose intended scale was without precedent in the agency’s history. In its Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) planning document released for Afghanistan in December 2021, UNICEF set its 2022 target for programme coverage at 15.3 million people, including 8.1 million children, and its funding requirements at US$2 billion. In comparison with the preceding HAC of 2021, this implied a ten-fold increase in coverage and a fourteen-fold increase in budget. These targets were informed by the impending risk that UNICEF, alongside other United Nations (UN) actors, may have to step in and substitute for government systems in the provision of basic services to a majority of the Afghan population. An added assumption at the time was that in doing so, it would have to address humanitarian risks sharply exacerbated by the social and economic impact of the Taliban takeover.
Following L3 activation, UNICEF humanitarian programmes were substantially scaled-up, enabling a significant expansion in coverage. In many cases, urgent needs remained far in excess of coverage, due to resource and capacity constraints. In other cases, programme targets were exceeded. Given how chronic and widespread humanitarian needs were in Afghanistan at the time, it is unlikely that all programme targets could ever be achieved. However, these targets served the important purpose of accurately reflecting the level of humanitarian needs on the ground.
Programme coverage and delivery
In the first nine months following the Taliban takeover, donor conditionalities and a lack of alignment between some of De facto Authorities’ (DfA) policies and the normative frameworks that inform UNICEF objectives led to a sharp reduction in the scope of UNICEF partnerships with government ministries. As a result, UNICEF took on additional programme burden. Combined with the lack of alternative partners for programme delivery, this came as a serious impediment to scale-up.
The quality of UNICEF programmes was heavily impacted by political and administrative impediments to humanitarian access, and other restrictions imposed by the DfA. Despite these constraints, the quality of programmes was good overall, as attested by positive feedback from affected groups who generally considered that UNICEF assistance was in line with their needs.
In the course of L3 scale-up, programme convergence was actively sought by UNICEF staff at both the planning and delivery stages of programming. Field Office staff tended to approach convergence opportunistically, as circumstances allowed. In part, this is because planning tools and processes are not well suited to supporting multi-sectoral programming.
Development and sustainability
Regarding prospects for supporting development and sustainability, these were adversely affected by the reduced scope for UNICEF cooperation with line ministries, and the challenges involved in pivoting to development interventions in which the state was not a key actor. Chief among these challenges was the scarcity of well-capacitated NGO partners on the ground. Efforts to establish an alternative to the prior development paradigm, in which Afghan line ministries played a central role, took time and is still ongoing. There was skepticism among interviewees that real progress in development and sustainability could be achieved outside of this paradigm.
In the months following the Taliban takeover, there was a prolonged lack of clarity on what development-type activities were acceptable to donors. Although some donors had released detailed guidelines on the subject, this guidance varied across the range of donors, making it difficult to establish a single clear-cut line between permissible and proscribed activities. This lack of clarity was compounded by difficulties in separating ’humanitarian’ from ’development’ interventions at programme level. In some cases, this likely caused delays in L3 scale-up, as considerable caution was exercised in the review and approval of programmes, to ensure that they complied with donor requirements.
Humanitarian access
Regarding humanitarian access, there was a profound change in local conditions. Alongside a sharp decline in security risk, which until then had prevented direct access to large parts of the country, political and administrative impediments to programme coverage increased rapidly after August 2021. In this changing context, UNICEF was largely able to adapt its posture and positioning to minimize the impact of an increasingly adverse context on its programmes. Nonetheless, obstacles to programme coverage remain substantial, as best exemplified by the Taliban ban on girls’ access to schools.
The preparedness measures taken ahead of the Taliban takeover were not commensurate with the transformational scale and impact of change brought about by this event (see related discussion below, Focus Area 5). The Emergency Preparedness Platform (EPP), used as the main UNICEF template for contingency planning in Afghanistan, was not fit for purpose. Although efforts were being made at the time to keep the EPP up-to-date, there are few indications that this tool contributed to preparedness in the run-up to L3 activation.
Some key events set in motion by the Taliban takeover were not unforeseen, yet remained unplanned for. Appropriate measures to adapt to the new conditions were taken in the months that followed the Taliban’s arrival in power. Some of these measures could have been initiated prior to the events of August 2021.
Needs assessments and targeting
The needs assessments that informed the UNICEF L3 response were conducted on a UN-wide and inter-agency basis. These assessments informed programme target numbers which accurately reflected actual needs. These targets were critical from a resource mobilization perspective, but were of limited usefulness in guiding prioritization on the ground during programme implementation. At programme level, targeting and prioritization typically aimed to reconcile limited levels of funding with overwhelming needs. This highly challenging exercise was approached pragmatically, and was the result of close and ongoing consultations between the Programme Sections and the Field Offices (FOs). Results achieved were generally good, but targeting was often challenging in the ’last-mile’ delivery phase, where there were indications of a heavy reliance on community leaders in beneficiary selection.
Given severe contextual barriers to accessing women and girls, this group was under-represented in needs assessments. This came as an extra obstacle to addressing its vulnerabilities with appropriate programmes.
In the context of the 2022 HAC, targeting was driven by distinct rationales. Consultations to reconcile these distinct views were sometimes difficult, due in part to the fact that the situation in Afghanistan at the time did not conform with a typical scenario of sudden-onset emergency. Consultations on programme targets were also hampered by a lack of clarity among staff on where final authority lay for decisions in this area. Despite these challenges, the L3 activation and scale-up in Afghanistan compared favourably with other current L3 emergencies.