Afghanistan: Humanitarian Response Plan 2018-2021 (2020 Mid-Year Monitoring Report)
Publisher: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Date: 2020
Topics: Climate Change, Disasters, Livelihoods, Public Health, Renewable Resources
Countries: Afghanistan
After 40 years of war, annual natural disasters and persistent poverty, the people of Afghanistan have been dealt another deadly blow from COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown Afghanistan into an unprecedented health, social and economic crisis requiring urgent action and solidarity from the international community. With a fragile health system, a developing economy and underlying vulnerabilities, the people of Afghanistan are facing extreme consequences from the pandemic. Limited access to water and sanitation, widespread food insecurity and high rates of malnutrition are all additional complicating factors for Afghanistan.
Despite the radically changed operational context in the first half of 2020, humanitarian partners reached 6 million people or more than half (54 per cent) of those they planned to assist during the year (11.1 million people). This mid-year progress towards planned reach is roughly aligned with reach figures for the same period in previous years, despite the enormous additional need from COVID-19 and pandemic-related operational constraints. This was possible with FTS showing only 24 per cent of required funding had been received due to two main factors: 1) Substantial carry-over funds ($96m) from 2019 and 2) the implementation of a substantial number of very high-reach, low-cost activities (particularly COVID-19 awareness raising work) rather than investment in the multi-sectoral or more durable assistance approaches clusters had hoped to promote prior to the pandemic.
Humanitarian presence remained fairly steady, despite the operating constraints, with 159 partners operational in the second quarter of the year across 390 districts. This compares to 162 partners across 380 districts in the first quarter. There was a notable increase in the number of partners reporting engagement in health activities, presumably related to the pandemic. The figures demonstrate the humanitarian community’s commitment to and investment in the Afghanistan response and the partners' capacity to stay and deliver despite the simultaneous security, health and financial challenges.
This mid-year report captures progress against the revised needs and targets identified in the June 2020 revision to the Afghanistan Humanitarian Response Plan.