KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has sounded a dire warning saying Afghanistan’s 2024 humanitarian response plan, requiring $3.06 billion, remains only 53 percent funded as of mid-2025.
This shortfall, approximately $1.43 billion, places millions at risk, according to OCHA’s Afghanistan Humanitarian Response Gap Analysis 2024.
Despite limited resources, humanitarian agencies helped over 22.4 million Afghans in 2024, surpassing the original target of 17.3 million.
However, OCHA emphasizes that most aid has been narrowly focused: around two-thirds of beneficiaries received only food assistance, sometimes reduced in volume and spaced further apart. Meanwhile, comprehensive services such as clean water, healthcare, education, and emergency shelters reached just 3.1 million people, 41 percent of the monthly target for those sectors.
Water and sanitation services are particularly underfunded, heightening the threat of disease outbreaks, malnutrition, and avoidable fatalities. “Insufficient funding for core sectors continues to undermine the delivery of essential services and increases the vulnerability of Afghan families,” the OCHA report states.
As of May 2025, late donor pledges had raised coverage from 47 percent to 53 percent, with $1.63 billion raised and an additional $412 million carried over from 2023. But these contributions leave the response effort critically under-resourced.
Top donors include the United States, which contributed $736.6 million, making up 45 percent of the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP), followed by the European Union’s ECHO and the United Kingdom, providing 12 percent and 10 percent respectively.
However, the withdrawal of U.S. assistance in early 2025, including the elimination of USAID, has severely impacted food and medical programs. The World Food Programme now reaches only half of those in need, with many Afghans surviving on “just bread and tea.” Other donors like Germany and the UK have significantly reduced aid budgets, and global donor fatigue has further hampered resource mobilization.
OCHA warns that this trend is not unique to Afghanistan. Worldwide humanitarian funding dropped sharply: by mid-2025, donors had provided $6 billion—down from $9 billion at the same point in 2024—leaving nearly 200 million vulnerable people beyond reach of the UN’s “hyper‑prioritized” 2025 global plan.
OCHA urges donors to reverse the trend and help bridge the $1.43 billion gap. The report warns that failing to secure sufficient funding may lead to a reversal of hard-won gains in Afghanistan and deepen the humanitarian crisis.
With more than 23.7 million Afghans, over half the population, requiring assistance this year, disruptions in water, health, and shelter programming could lead to widespread suffering. OCHA’s report insists, “The international community must not allow Afghanistan to slide further into crisis due to a failure of funding.”
