ACAPS, 7 February 2025
This ACAPS Briefing note provides an excellent summary of what the Trump administration has decided on dismantling USAID and halting development aid – and what that means for Afghanistan:
Here the organisation’s summary for the second part:
The US is a major humanitarian aid donor; in 2024, according to OCHA’s financial tracking system, US funds made up 43.9% of all reported humanitarian funding in Afghanistan (OCHA accessed 30/01/2025). In 2025, the US was expected to provide at least USD 234 million in humanitarian financing to Afghanistan, around 10% of the total funding requirements of the country’s 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) and around 60% of all funds committed to the response by 3 February (USAID 17/01/2025; OCHA accessed 03/02/2025). According to the deputy minister of economy of the Interim Taliban Authority (ITA), around 50 national and international aid organisations across the country have had to suspend operations, in part or entirely, following the SWOs (NPR 03/02/2025). The humanitarian impacts of the funding pause and SWOs will become clearer in the coming days or weeks when organisations have more clarity on which programmes can continue under the waiver. That said, the precarious humanitarian situation in Afghanistan means any decline in humanitarian funding or pause in humanitarian operations will have a significant impact on the Afghan population in general and especially on those in immediate need of humanitarian assistance. More than one-third of Afghanistan’s population is projected to face acute food insecurity through March 2025 (OCHA 19/12/2024). While it is unclear how or whether the US withdrawal from WHO will affect the healthcare crisis in Afghanistan, the country’s health system is struggling, and social determinants of health continue to worsen (HRW 12/02/2024). The combination of continued restrictions (especially on women and girls), economic stagnation, commodity price increases, and insufficient funding – a large part suspended following the SWOs – is likely to contribute to a significantly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 10 Feb 2025
