Faith Leaders Driving Change for Women and Girls
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Worsening crisis in Afghanistan
The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is extremely serious, with over 21 million people (45 per cent of the population) in need of humanitarian aid and one of the world’s worst food crises, in which 17.4 million people are facing acute food shortages (IPC Phase 3 or worse), including 5.2 million in a state of emergency (Phase 4).
Visiting Transitional Shelter in Herat province built in 2024/25 with support of UNDP after the earthquake.
Economic shocks, including heavy international cuts to aid, the forced return of millions of Afghan refugees from neighbouring countries, earthquakes, and persistent drought have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis.
Income down – prices up
- It is projected that during the winter, we will see an increase in IPC 4, which is normal in Afghanistan. Although some areas have had issues with crops and harvest (floods, droughts) the main issue is economy. There is an increase of people due to returns from Pakistan and Iran, but also because the border with Pakistan is closed and the border with Iran is affected by the war, the economy has been struggling. Family income has gone down, whilst prices have gone up, says country director Jakob Pieter Misja Bonke (Mike)
Currently NCA is implementing two main programs, emergency response with support of NORAD, and a transitional response with support of DIAKONIE. Both of these projects are in Kunar province, next to the Pakistani border. The emergency response project supports families that lost their homes due to a major earthquake with cash for food, shelter, NFIs and PSS and DRR training and sessions. The transitional response supports recent returned Afghanis that have been returned from Pakistan with life skills, so that they can learn a trade, start a profession and hopefully can provide for their families.
Cash for food
- Although we do not focus specifically on food insecurity. We do have cash for food in our emergency response and with our integrated watershed management we will see if we can work with small hold farmers to make them more resilient, growing better and more crops, says Mike.
- We are also implementing a NORAD civil society grant with four national partners in Kunduz and Wardak. Here the multiyear project focuses on integrated watershed management, where we try to work with the community to address the needs and issues associated with it.
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