WFP Afghanistan Country Brief

Highlights

• Food security among the poorest has deteriorated in Afghanistan according to recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) and Seasonal Food Security (SFSA) post-harvest assessments.
• On 16 October, Afghanistan joined the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. 41 per cent of children under 5 in Afghanistan are stunted.
• WFP will increase assistance to vulnerable people in prolonged displacement during the critical winter period.
• WFP and partners have regained access to Wardoj province, which had been inaccessible since 2015.
• WFP faces a shortage of funding from February 2018 and urgently needs USD 42.6 million to meet the food and nutrition needs of vulnerable women, men, boys and girls

Operational Updates

• 1.9 million Afghan men, women and children are experiencing emergency levels of food insecurity (IPC 4) according to the recent IPC post-harvest food security assessment (compared with 208,000 in 2015). Badghis, Faryab and Khost districts have highest levels of food insecurity, and across the country Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), returnees, refugees and women-headed households are worst affected. Initial findings of the SFSA indicate a worse situation for the poorest families than in 2016, with an increase in severe food insecurity. Both reports identify limited resilience as a risk, as families are forced to sell assets in order to buy food. WFP’s mobile vulnerability analysis and mapping unit (mVAM) published a Market Assessment Bulletin for the eastern provinces of Nuristan and Kunar. The report found that worsening security in both provinces makes households concerned about travelling to markets. Furthermore, physical access challenges, which are exacerbated by security, have pushed up prices in Nuristan province.
• The mVAM unit conducted 60 interviews with Key Informants including market traders, CDCs and Shuras, across 12 districts.
• WFP is targeting 12,500 prolonged IDPs in the northern region who will be registered via SCOPE and receive food assistance (2,250 mt of mixed foods) in November and December.
• In October, WFP distributed 3,757 mt of WFP food and USD 689,531 of cash-based transfers to 713,942 food-insecure men, women, boys and girls in Afghanistan. Women and girls numbered 404,661.
• WFP Afghanistan prepositioned 331 mt of food to districts in the western, northern and central regions that are inaccessible during the winter months. A further 1,086 mt will be prepositioned in November.
• WFP and partners made significant breakthroughs in access negotiations. For the first time since 2015 an inter-agency team will conduct assessments in Wardoj district in Badakhshan province (northern Afghanistan). With help from communities, WFP is now proving take home rations to boys and girls attending schools in Musa Qala district in Helmand province (in the south).
• 18 WFP staff received gender mainstreaming awareness sessions from WFP’s Gender Equality Specialist in October (including 16 men and 2 women).
• The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) transported 2,288 aid workers and 4.8 mt of light cargo. In Afghanistan, 160 organizations rely on UNHAS to reach populations in need.
  Challenges
• Deteriorating security situation: Insecurity remains the greatest challenge facing WFP’s operations.
• Access challenges: WFP remains unable to access 450 targeted Pakistani refugees in Paktika province (in the east) and unable to conduct needs assessments of IDPs in Bala Murghab in northwestern Afghanistan due to insecurity. Access negotiations are ongoing.
• Funding shortage: WFP urgently needs USD 42.6 million avoid pipeline breaks from March 2018.

Original source: WFP
Published on 31 October 2017