Afghanistan Appeal
Humanitarian Action for Children
UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children appeal helps support the agency’s work as it provides conflict- and disaster-affected children with access to water, sanitation, nutrition, education, health and protection services. Return to main appeal page.
Afghanistan snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Afghanistan continues to experience concurrent crises including drought-like conditions, floods, insecurity, harsh winters, political and economic instability, and displacement, all of which pose serious risks.
- Some 29.2 million people are projected to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2023. The economic crisis is expected to continue, with 64 per cent of households unable to meet their basic needs as vulnerable populations are pushed to the brink.
- Afghan women and girls face a worsening systematic rights crisis. Their exclusion from secondary and tertiary education, coupled with the ban on Afghan women from working with non-governmental organizations and the United Nations, has significantly increased protection risks for vulnerable women and children. The impacts will be felt for generations to come.
- The operating environment remains complex, with bureaucratic impediments increasing and humanitarian space shrinking. However, UNICEF remains committed to staying and delivering life-saving activities in underserved areas focusing on WASH, health, nutrition, education, and child protection.
- In 2023, US$1.45 billion is urgently needed and without this funding, the humanitarian needs of 19 million people in Afghanistan will remain unmet.
Key planned results for 2023
19 million people accessing health care services through UNICEF-supported activities
875,000 children with severe wasting admitted for treatment
3.6 million children/caregivers accessing community-based mental health and psychosocial support
6.2 million people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2023
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, women and girls have experienced a series of restrictive measures curtailing basic freedoms and income-earning opportunities, creating barriers to accessing services, and excluding them from secondary and tertiary education. In 2023, the situation deteriorated further through the barring of Afghan women working for international and national non-government organizations and United Nations agencies. This systematic erasure of women and girls from public life will have devastating effects on Afghanistan and Afghan children, impacting generations to come.
Negotiated local and national exemptions for female staff to work, which provide a lifeline for the continuation of humanitarian services, exist in a state of fragility. The slightest interruption in service delivery could potentially lead to dire consequences for an already vulnerable population. In addition, bureaucratic impediments imposed by the de-facto authorities have increased since 2023 and are anticipated to increase further, further straining a complex operating environment.
While needs remain mostly static, analysis indicates a worsening protection environment and increased vulnerabilities of girls and women due to restrictions on female humanitarian workers. The number of people in need of protection services has risen from 20.3 million to 22.1 million, most notably in specialized protection services. Approximately 8.7 million children need education support and negative coping mechanisms remain commonplace, with 31 per cent of households reporting at least one child out of school and reported increases of 7 per cent in child labor as a coping strategy. Despite marginal increases in the food security outlook, over 15 million people are projected to be in crisis and emergency levels of food insecurity during the period of May to October 2023.
While the health and nutrition situation remains the same, the precarious nature of exemptions and the restrictive environment could potentially result in a reduction in the number of people, particularly women, and children, accessing health and nutrition services. In a context where 17 out of 34 provinces are reporting severe wasting, and 13.3 million people have no access to health care, any disruptions in services will have dire consequences for populations already at high risk.
WASH needs have remained at a record high with 50 per cent of the population lacking access to safe water, and 26 per cent lacking access to improved latrines. The ban on female humanitarian staff poses significant challenges in the delivery of critical WASH services, particularly in hygiene promotion. The risk of AWD/cholera is increasing significantly, and hygiene promotion remains a key activity in combatting the spread of communicable diseases and reducing morbidity and mortality, particularly among children.
Afghanistan is ranked number 5 of the countries that are most climate at-risk worldwide, with a higher warming rate than the global average. Floods, drought-like conditions, and other natural hazards are widespread, and coupled with a complex operating environment and severe underfunding, the possibility of famine cannot be excluded.
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF remains committed to staying and delivering and will continue a principled and pragmatic approach to bringing life-saving services to the women and children of Afghanistan. To do so, UNICEF will adopt alternative modalities, remain agile, and advocate for further national-level, local, and sector-wide exemptions, as well as unimpeded and principled access to people in need.
UNICEF has adopted the HCT-endorsed minimum standards for AAP, PSEA, and gender inclusion in its response. UNICEF has scaled up its AAP through the expansion of a call centre to ensure two-way feedback mechanisms remain feasible and prioritized training of partners on gender inclusion, and PSEA to ensure functional safe, and accessible reporting mechanisms are in place.
While most needs remain unchanged, the operating environment remains complex and unpredictable. Delivery modalities shifted to adapt to an environment where enhanced training, capacity building, and programme integration have never been more important. Affected programmes have devised mechanisms to integrate critical services into health/nutrition programming to meet vulnerable populations. However, the ban, increased interferences, and lack of funding have significantly affected the scale and scope of some services.
UNICEF remains committed to meeting critical WASH needs despite the impact of the ban on the coverage of services, bureaucratic impediments, and funding constraints. UNICEF will prioritize drought and flood-affected communities and improve water supply networks to build resilience and prevent displacement. Hygiene promotion activities will remain critical to reduce outbreaks, and UNICEF will prioritize AWD/cholera hotspots and integrate with health/nutrition services delivery where possible.
UNICEF will continue to advocate for the reopening of secondary schools for girls and ensure the continued support for community-based education programmes and both accelerated and temporary learning centres reaching vulnerable and shock-affected children. The most at-risk public schools will be provided with critical support including teacher training, particularly for female teachers.
UNICEF will prioritize the safeguarding of health and nutrition services by maintaining high-quality primary and secondary health services and nutrition services. Priorities will include maintaining critical human resources, medical supplies, and equipment and earlydetection and treatment of acute malnutrition in children under 5. In underserved areas, UNICEF will operate mobile health and nutrition teams in line with the technical working group rationalization process.
UNICEF will provide services to children with acute protection needs and support vulnerable children and their caregivers with specialized services and mental health and psychosocial support. Case management for unaccompanied and separated children, gender-based violence prevention, risk mitigation, and response, and mine-risk education will continue through remote mechanisms, integration into health/nutrition services, and negotiated access.
UNICEF will continue to use humanitarian cash transfers to respond rapidly to sudden-onset disasters, mitigate the impact of harsh winters and support access to life-saving services. UNICEF’s cluster leadership and extensive field presence through five zonal offices and eight outposts enables a decentralized, targeted response. UNICEF remains committed to delivering a holistic, gender-sensitive, inclusive response to the most vulnerable in all programme areas.
Programme targets
Find out more about UNICEF's work
Highlights
Humanitarian Action is at the core of UNICEF’s mandate to realize the rights of every child. This edition of Humanitarian Action for Children – UNICEF’s annual humanitarian fundraising appeal – describes the ongoing crises affecting children in Afghanistan; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
