SITUATION
More than three decades of war, sustained flows of returnees, civil unrest, insurgent activity and recurring natural disasters have contributed to chronic humanitarian need in Afghanistan. As of March, conflict has internally displaced over 42,200 people, 147,500 undocumented Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan and natural disasters have affected roughly 3,900 people since January, according to the UN.
Widespread conflict, poor rain-fed staple production and limited labor opportunities are the main drivers of acute food insecurity in Afghanistan, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) reports.
According to the UN World Food Program (WFP), an estimated 9.3 million people are food insecure in Afghanistan—including 3.4 million severely food insecure; approximately 41 percent of children under 5 years of age are stunted and 10 percent suffer from acute malnutrition.Afghanistan is experiencing below-average rainfall during the October 2017–May 2018 wet season, threatening agricultural outcomes of farmers and pastoralists in areas where March and April rainfall is critical for harvest outcomes and affects rangeland conditions. This will likely negatively affect food availability for many vulnerable communities throughout the January – April lean season—when food is most scarce for many households. In March, FEWS NET projected that an estimated 4–5 million people will face Crisis (IPC 3) or worse levels of food insecurity outcomes during the 2018 lean season.
RESPONSE
With USAID/FFP support, WFP is distributing critical humanitarian assistance to those affected by conflict and natural disasters, strengthening communities’ resilience to shocks, supporting seasonally and chronically food-insecure populations, and providing supplementary feeding to treat and prevent malnutrition in children under 5 years of age and pregnant and lactating women. In FY 2018, USAID’s Office of Food for Peace contributed $25 million to WFP to provide approximately 547,000 food-insecure individuals with emergency food assistance sourced from local and regional markets and cash-based transfers through local shops and financial institutions.
Additionally, USAID/FFP partners with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to support emergency nutrition programs, providing ready-to-use therapeutic foods in response to severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. UNICEF programs also build the capacity of non-governmental partners and the Government of Afghanistan through performance monitoring, training and supervision. In FY 2017, USAID/FFP contributed $4.4 million to UNICEF providing assistance to over 29,000 children 6-59 months suffering from SAM.