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Afghanistan

WFP Afghanistan: Situation Report 17 March 2022

Attachments

In Numbers

22.8 million people – half of the population – are projected to be acutely food insecure in 2022,1 including 8.7 million at risk of famine-like conditions

4.7 million children, pregnant and lactating women at risk of acute malnutrition in 2022

All 34 provinces are facing crisis or emergency levels of acute food insecurity

Highlights

• WFP has reached 14.1 million2 people with food, nutrition, and resilience support in 2022 and 6.1 million people thus far in March. WFP plans to reach 23 million people in 2022.

• WFP is facing supply chain challenges, including the closure of the Salang Pass to large trucks, customs clearance processes, and issues associated with the sharp increase in fuel prices.

• Funding shortfalls are forecast for May 2022; WFP urgently requires USD 1.6 billion for the remainder of 2022.

Situation Update

• Two-thirds of the population are now resorting to crisis-level coping strategies to feed their families. This is an eight percentage point increase from December and a staggering sixfold increase since August 2021, according to WFP’s latest Food Security Update for Afghanistan. Crisis and emergency coping strategies include the sale of organs and children to survive.

• Almost 100 percent of female-headed households surveyed are facing insufficient food consumption. Female-headed households are more likely to employ crisis-level coping strategies compared to male-headed households.

• Eight in ten (80 percent) income-earning households experienced a significant decrease in income during the month of January. With the changing face of urban hunger, households in Kabul were hit the hardest, where some families braved the harsh winter season without any income at all.

• More than half of Afghanistan’s population, or 22.8 million people, are acutely food insecure, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, while more than 24.4 people are in need of humanitarian support. A total 8.7 million people are just one step away from experiencing famine-like conditions.