KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has announced that it requires $1.71billion to provide humanitarian assistance to people in need in Afghanistan in the coming year.
In a statement released on Tuesday (December 30), OCHA published its 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan, outlining the scale of the crisis and the funding required to address it.
According to the agency, an estimated 21.9 million people – nearly 45 percent of Afghanistan’s population – are expected to require humanitarian assistance in 2026. Of those, 17.5 million people are being targeted for aid.
OCHA said that food insecurity and acute malnutrition remain among the most severe and widespread drivers of humanitarian needs across the country.
Despite a slight reduction in the overall number of people in need, OCHA noted that Afghanistan will continue to face one of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis in 2026.
The UN added that years of conflict, economic fragility, underinvestment in essential services, and the rapid erosion of rights have significantly weakened the resilience of large segments of the population.
According to OCHA, these long-term pressures are now being compounded by worsening food insecurity, the return of migrants, climate change-induced drought, recurring natural disasters, and the systematic exclusion of women and girls from public life.
