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Info Service on UN Sustainable Development (May25/03) Penang, 2 May (Kanaga Raja) — “Cutting funding for those in greatest need is not something to boast about. For millions, it is a death sentence,” Mr Tom Fletcher, the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, has warned. This stark warning came as Mr Fletcher was undertaking a “harrowing” visit to Kandahar’s main hospital in southern Afghanistan on 29 April. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Mr Fletcher visited the Mirwais Regional Hospital, where medical teams are doing everything they can to sustain critical care, including for mothers and newborns, despite brutal funding cuts. In visiting the hospital as part of his five-day official visit to Afghanistan, the UN relief chief warned that in the face of dwindling resources, facilities are overcrowded, and doctors are having to make impossible choices about which patients to prioritize, according to OCHA. Speaking from the main hospital in Kandahar, Mr Fletcher highlighted the severe impact of the recent funding cuts on Afghanistan, where the UN has been forced to close 400 health centers across the country, affecting over 3 million people, and where three to four patients have to share a bed in overcrowded hospitals, among others. Mr Fletcher said: “We often talk about funding cuts in general terms, in terms of numbers and statistics.” “But I challenge anyone making these decisions to come and visit a hospital like this one in Kandahar, where in the region around us, we’ve had to cut, in the last few months, 400 medical centers, denying primary health care to over 3 million people,” he added. “And you can see the impact of that in major hospitals like this one, where you have three, four people to a bed, when you can see the newborn children not getting the support they need, where you can see doctors making the most horrific decisions about which lives to save and which lives not to save,” said the UN relief chief. He also pointed out that female health workers are facing salary cuts of up to two-thirds. “This is real, And this is the impact of aid cuts. And I can’t sugar this pill. The impact of aid cuts is that millions die,” Mr Fletcher underlined. According to OCHA, across Afghanistan, some 23 million people – more than half of the population – need life- saving assistance this year, at a time when the UN and partners are grappling with deep funding cuts. Meanwhile, the UN on 1 May released a record US$16.6 million to help vulnerable communities in Afghanistan mitigate the effects of drought in the north and northeast of the country. OCHA said that this new financing, which is both the first and largest joint allocation in support of anticipatory action against drought in Afghanistan, includes $6.6 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and $10 million from the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund. “Forecast-based action is the future of humanitarian response,” said Mr Fletcher, the UN relief chief, during his five-day visit to Afghanistan. “With the right science and data, we can deliver faster, protect more people, and stretch scarce resources further, at a time when devastating funding cuts are deepening Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis,” he added. According to OCHA, the initiative targets four provinces still reeling from successive droughts, namely, Faryab, Sar-e-Pul, Takhar and Badakhshan. It said just last week, new data and forecasts – coupled with observations from dozens of farmers – confirmed that Faryab is facing its worst drought in more than five years. Before the drought peaks in the coming months, the UN and humanitarian partners will deliver cash and other assistance to support food security, agriculture and livestock, water, sanitation and hygiene, health, nutrition and protection, it added. Five UN agencies are working with six international NGOs and 10 Afghan organizations to ensure a locally-led response, said OCHA. “Every dollar we invest now saves more dollars and more lives down the line,” said Indrika Ratwatte, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan. “This is a wholly data-driven initiative which will give families a fighting chance to safeguard their livelihoods before the worst hits,” Ratwatte added. CRISIS DEEPENS Separately, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) on 30 April warned that Afghanistan is sinking deeper into socioeconomic crisis, with widening inequalities that are accentuated for women and specific regions. In a new report, UNDP said for the first time since 2019, Afghanistan experienced modest GDP growth of 2.7 percent in 2023-2024. Yet, recovery remains fragile: the country’s trade deficit surged to $6.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2024, up from $5.1 billion during the same period in 2023. The increase reflects stalled local production and weak job creation. The economy continues to depend heavily on imports and international assistance as a result, said the report. According to the report, 75 percent of the population was subsistence-insecure in 2024, up six percentage points from 2023. Access to adequate housing, healthcare and essential goods declined, while shocks, including economic and climate-related events, intensified, it said. Female-headed households, rural communities, and internally displaced persons reported the most severe declines in income and expenditure. UNDP also said nine out of ten Afghan households, facing loss of productive assets, livelihoods, work and income opportunities, reported having to reduce daily household consumption with drawn-down spending, thereby lowering their resilience to shocks and deepening their vulnerability. With ongoing restrictions on women’s education and employment, the report found that the gender gap has widened further, pushing women deeper into poverty and social exclusion. Restrictions on women and girls are projected to cost the economy nearly $920 million between 2024 and 2026, it said. “UNDP’s current analysis and new data indicate the continuation of a deeply troubling trajectory for the Afghan people, who have been grappling with extreme vulnerability over the past decade,” said Kanni Wignaraja, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP’s Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific. Wignaraja said that with the anticipated arrival of hundreds of thousands of returnees this year and a marked reduction in international support, Afghan communities will have to navigate substantial challenges that will increase pressures on an already highly tenuous daily subsistence. “This will, as always, extend the unbearable plight of women and girls who are already the furthest behind,” Wignaraja added. Painting a sobering picture of the state of Afghanistan’s economy and the livelihoods and well-being of the Afghan people, the report said after a steep 27 percentage-point contraction during 2020-2022, Afghanistan’s economy showed tentative signs of stabilization, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growing a modest 2.7 percent in 2023-2024, the first growth since 2019. However, it said that this growth remains weak, and the economy shows signs of stagnating in a low-growth, low-productivity equilibrium. It said shocks in 2024 have further constrained recovery. Political uncertainty, the ongoing economic crisis, shrinking international aid and climate disruptions – such as severe droughts and floods – have compounded existing vulnerabilities, limiting the economy’s ability to regain momentum. The recovery remains very fragile. It relies excessively on household consumption, which is highly dependent on international assistance, an agricultural sector susceptible to climate shocks and a resilient yet constrained private sector facing persistent structural bottlenecks, it added. The banking sector, which saw a relative restoration of trust in 2022, reversed course in 2023, with depositors declining by 14.2 percent, deposits by 10.3 percent and overall bank assets by 10.4 percent compared to 2022. UNDP estimates that subsistence insecurity increased in 2024, with 75 percent of the population subsistence insecure – a 6 percentage-point increase from 2023. The increase in insecurity reversed some of the improvements seen in 2023, with particularly sharp declines in housing adequacy, and the affordability of health care and essential household items, such as cooking items and winter clothing, it said. Economic stagnation has left households with fewer income-generating options, consistently high levels of food insecurity and a high reliance on external assistance, said the report. Both household monthly income and per capita expenditure declined in 2024, with the most significant declines among female-headed households, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and rural households. The share of households with poor food consumption (lowest classification) declined from 26 percent in 2023 to 17 percent in 2024, probably due to targeted food aid programmes and relatively stable agricultural output, said the report. However, it said based on the continued decline in humanitarian aid, future projections of food insecurity suggest that this improvement will likely be short-lived, with the proportion of the population in the crisis food insecurity or above category (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification 3+) projected to increase from 25 percent in September-October 2024 to 32 percent in November 2024 to March 2025. The proportion of households impacted by economic shocks increased dramatically, moving from 65 percent in 2023 to 90 percent (97 percent for female-headed households) in 2024, reinforcing household precarity, it added. In addition to endogenous shocks, Afghanistan faced a major influx of returnees from Pakistan and Iran in 2024, as these neighbouring countries hardened their positions on migrants and refugees from Afghanistan. These rates are set to accelerate in 2025, with an estimated 600,000 additional returnees, which could rise to as many as 1.5 million people. The report said a further critical exogenous shock will be the substantial reduction in international assistance from the United States, which will have a significant impact on humanitarian and basic human needs assistance and will dramatically affect the support services available to deal with the influx of returnees. The marginalization of women and girls has become increasingly evident across all available data indicators and a profound crisis appears to be unfolding along gender, urban-rural and regional fault lines, the report said. Female-headed households faced an 88 percent subsistence insecurity rate in 2024, compared to 74 percent for male-headed households. UNDP said female-headed households reported sharp declines in employment opportunities, food security and living conditions. Repressive laws continue to erode women’s rights, safety and access to basic services, including health care and education. In 2024, only 7 percent of women were employed outside the household, compared to 84 percent of men, the report said. +
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