Attachments
2. Rationale
2.1 Background
In 2022, Afghanistan encountered a series of challenges including heightened conflict, political instability, economic crisis, natural disasters, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. According to the 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan, these factors led to a significant rise in the number of people requiring life-saving assistance, increasing from 18.4 million in 2021 to 24.4 million in 2022, and further to 28.3 million in 2023, with 23.7 million individuals targeted for multi-sector assistance. Localized disasters like earthquakes and flash floods exacerbated the already alarming levels of multi-sectoral needs, overwhelming existing humanitarian assessments. To address this, a mid-year iteration of REACH's Whole of Afghanistan Assessment (WoAA) was conducted in Spring 2022 to guide adjustments in humanitarian programming. However, the current nation-wide needs analysis may not fully capture the localized impact of such shocks. In response, the Inter-Cluster Coordination Team (ICCT) initiated quarterly prioritization exercises to identify the most in-need districts for each season, though challenges remain, including outdated data sources and a lack of a unified framework for needs analysis.
These evolving circumstances have necessitated a shift in the approach to humanitarian planning and response, underscoring the limitations of the annual Humanitarian Planning Cycle (HPC) which relies on provincial-level assessments. To bridge this gap, the Assessment and Analysis Working Group (AAWG) has introduced the Needs Monitoring Framework (NMF), a strategic initiative aimed at providing quarterly, district-level insights into multisectoral needs using existing data sources. This framework is designed to complement the annual Joint Intersectoral Assessment Framework (JIAF), enhancing the ability of humanitarian organizations to respond to the nuanced and shifting landscape of needs within Afghanistan.
Efforts to improve coordination and data sharing among humanitarian actors through the Analysis and Assessment Working Group (AAWG) have been made. However, policy-related barriers hinder the ability to conduct effective assessments despite increased operational space following reduced conflict in August 2021. Given this dynamic landscape and operational constraints, leveraging existing assessments and monitoring systems is crucial to ensure regular and comprehensive monitoring of humanitarian needs across Afghanistan Collective action and coordination among stakeholders are essential to address challenges and enhance the effectiveness of humanitarian response efforts.
Building on the success of pilot findings and the roll-out of JIAF 2.0, the NMF will be relaunched as of 2024, with the concurrent reanimation of the AAWG. Although delayed due to capacity constraints, the information gaps within the humanitarian architecture remain largely comparable and, as such, the NMF still has the capacity to fill urgent analytical needs.