ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – The World Food Program (WFP) announces that the UK has donated £28.7 million ($36.5 million) in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirms Germany’s contribution of €5 million ($5.4 million) to the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund.
In a statement on Monday, February 5, WFP announced that the UK’s contribution will go toward supporting WFP’s emergency response for food-insecure families and treating malnourished young children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers across the country.
WFP quoted the UK Minister of State for Middle East, Tariq Ahmad, saying that his country’s recent aid package will help the UN agency to send life-saving assistance to more than two million people around Afghanistan.
“The assistance goes to some of the most vulnerable people who have nearly no means to provide for themselves, notably widows, women- and children-headed families, and people with disabilities.”
The contribution will procure 13,000 metric tons of wheat flour, vegetable oil, pulses, and salt, assisting over 1 million people for a month. Moreover, up to 1 million individuals will receive cash transfers to address their food requirements during the winter.
“The harsh Afghan winter is a countdown to zero for families across the country. It’s a time when communities are forced to burn through all their food and resources,” said WFP’s Deputy Country Director for Afghanistan, Mutinta Chimuka.
“The support from the UK is allowing us to help tens of thousands of vulnerable families through winter when hunger bites the hardest.”
According to WFP, the UN agency successfully reached over 18 million people nationwide in 2023. The UK has been a consistent supporter of the organization, contributing £183.7 million ($209 million) over the past two years.
Meanwhile, in a social media post on Monday, OCHA announced that Germany has contributed an additional amount of $5.4 million to the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund (AHF) for 2023-2024. The organization did not specify where and how the fund will be allocated.
Afghanistan has been struggling with a severe humanitarian crisis for years, even before the Taliban took over the country in August 2021. According to UN estimates for 2024, over half of Afghanistan’s population, approximately 23.7 million people, will require life-saving assistance. Additionally, alongside ongoing economic woes, the humanitarian crisis in the country was further deepened by multiple earthquakes in Herat province in October 2023 and the deportation of undocumented immigrants from neighboring Pakistan and Iran.
Humanitarian agencies have been grappling with a funding shortfall for the past two years, as global attention is primarily focused on ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. The UN says that this severe funding shortfall is one of the worst in recent years, significantly hindering the organization’s capacity to deliver aid to the most vulnerable individuals.
Last year, the UN launched a record-breaking $4.6 billion appeal for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, aiming to support millions of people with essential needs like food, shelter, medical care, and more. However, the appeal was revised down to $3.2 billion in early June.
As of November, only 39.6% of the revised amount had been raised. WFP reported that 10 million people in Afghanistan lost access to vital food assistance between May and November 2023 due to a critical funding shortfall.
In 2024, the UN requested $3 billion in funding for Afghanistan. The lower the size of the annual appeal and the number of people it aims to reach is not because of lower demand or improved situation on the ground, but rather an acknowledgement that the outside world’s interest in pumping to the impoverished country.
