The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warns that acute hunger in Afghanistan is no longer seasonal but a grueling daily reality for millions of people. WFP said today that two-thirds of the country’s population - or 28.3 million - will require humanitarian assistance next year, up from 24.4 million men, women and children in 2022. According to the UN agency, malnutrition in Afghanistan has reached the highest levels since records have been kept.
WFP says its assistance is helping to prevent the crisis in Afghanistan from becoming a humanitarian catastrophe. In 2022, WFP assisted nearly half of the population distributing more than 1 million metric tons of food and disbursing more than $286 million in cash and vouchers directly to families to help them cover their food needs. With families less prepared than ever to endure another harsh winter, WFP is ramping up assistance to 15 million people to help them survive.
In a related development the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, briefed the UN Security Council yesterday on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan. Mr. Griffiths said that the humanitarian community in Afghanistan was fully mobilized, trying to address the most urgent needs.
“Ninety-seven percent of Afghans live in poverty. Two thirds of the population need humanitarian assistance to survive. Twenty million people face acute hunger. Half of the people urgently need access to clean water and sanitation. And 1.1 million teenage girls remain banned from school. Nearly 7 million Afghan nationals remain in neighboring countries, including as refugees, and more than 3.4 million internally displaced people are yet to find a way home”, Mr. Griffiths said.
“And if lingering conflict, entrenched poverty, economic downfall, and political instability were not enough, Afghanistan must also contend with a worsening climate crisis. A third consecutive drought is looming, bringing with it threats of more displacement, more disease, more death. Winter is already in full swing, causing temperatures to plummet,” the Emergency Relief Coordinator added.
Afghanistan is one of the world's largest and most severe humanitarian crises. Millions in the Southern Asian country are experiencing misery and hunger amid decades of conflict. The cumulative effects of violent conflict, internal displacement, drought and other natural disasters have drastically increased humanitarian needs throughout the country.
Nearly 20 million people in Afghanistan are projected to be acutely food-insecure between November 2022 and March 2023, including more than 6 million people in emergency levels of food insecurity. 4 million people are acutely malnourished, including 3.2 million children under the age of five. 28.3 million people will require humanitarian assistance in 2023
According to the WFP, Afghanistan continues to face the highest prevalence of insufficient food consumption globally. The current food crisis is perpetuated by concurrent climate crisis, as 30 out of 34 provinces in Afghanistan report extremely low water quality. The proportion of households feeling the impact of drought in 2022 is six times greater than in 2020 as Afghanistan enters its third consecutive drought year.
Further information
Full text: Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, transcript, released December 21, 2022
https://press.un.org/en/2022/db221221.doc.htm
Full text: Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths Statement for the Security Council Briefing on the Humanitarian Situation in Afghanistan, December 20, 2022
https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/under-secretary-general-humanitarian-affairs-and-emergency-relief-coordinator-martin-griffiths-statement-security-council-briefing-humanitarian-situation-afghanistan-20-december-2022
Full text: WFP Afghanistan: Situation Report, published December 13, 2022
https://reliefweb.int/attachments/81715214-8c36-4a29-8ad6-d1f8424527fd/WFP-0000145298.pdf
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