ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – According to the Taliban-controlled National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), 21 million people throughout Afghanistan lack access to clean drinking water, citing climate change as the primary cause.
Abdul Salam Haqqani, the Taliban deputy head of NEPA, said on Monday, February 5, that decades of armed conflicts and climate change-related disasters in Afghanistan have inflicted significant damage on its population.
Unseasonal floods, attributed to climate change in recent years, have killed over 1,730 people and more than 70,000 livestock and wild animals in Afghanistan, the Taliban authorities said, which destroyed over 104 thousand hectares of agricultural land and 46 thousand hectares of gardens.
Afghanistan is grappling with one of the worst droughts, food, and water shortage crisis in decades, amid an unrivaled humanitarian catastrophe that looms large for millions of people across the country.
According to an OCHA report analyzing the drought disaster between 2021 and 2023, climate change and fatal droughts across Afghanistan have left 79% of its population without sufficient water for their daily needs, including drinking and cooking.
The Global Climate Risk Index says Afghanistan is the world’s sixth most affected country by climate-related threats.
The situation in Kabul and many other major cities has become increasingly concerning with the rising population. Many residents, without proper plans or monitoring from the municipality or government, have resorted to digging hundreds or even thousands of wells.
In 2021, the National Water Affairs Regulation Authority (NWARA) under the previous government reported a substantial 12-meter decline in the groundwater level of Kabul City within a year. The annual drop in groundwater levels in Kabul prompts residents to dig deeper wells for personal use, posing significant challenges for the community in accessing clean drinking water.
The significant and extensive impact of unclean water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene practices on children’s health is profound. Diseases like cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio, all associated with contaminated water sources, can hinder endeavors to address malnutrition and other health issues in the country.
Earlier, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported the same figure, indicating, “Twenty-one million people in Afghanistan need clean water and sanitation, significantly up from 2.4 million a decade ago. Natural disasters are on the rise in intensity, and severity, making Afghanistan the fourth most at-risk country and the eighth most vulnerable and least prepared to adapt to climate change,” OCHA stated.
The UN agency emphasized that desertification impacts more than 75% of the land in northern, western, and southern regions. OCHA added, “Rain-fed agriculture, critical for 60% of the population, is at risk due to changing precipitation patterns.”
Although humanitarian aid is crucial, it inadequately tackles the root causes of climate change, leaving Afghanistan vulnerable to additional climate-related shocks. The organization stressed, “The resilient Afghan population requires urgent support to cope with the shrinking productive capacity and to strengthen adaptive and livelihood capabilities.”
