At Security Council, UN Relief Chief says underfunding has left Afghanistan in a deeper humanitarian crisis

Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator  

New York, 10 December 2025

[As delivered]

Madame President,

I will focus today on two key issues: the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and the latest on the humanitarian exception to resolution 2615.

As I witnessed when I visited Kabul, Kandahar and Kunduz earlier this year, overlapping shocks, restrictive policies affecting women and girls, the longstanding impact of decades of conflict and chronic poverty – and as of this year, massive funding cuts – have left Afghanistan in a severe humanitarian crisis.

Nearly 22 million people will need our help in 2026. That is third only to Sudan and Yemen in scale. Our ask is US$1.7 billion to target 17.5 million people. But in response to the funding reality, we have further hyper-prioritized our plan to target 3.9 million people in most urgent need of life-saving help. 

For the first time in four years the number of people facing hunger has gone up – now reaching 17.4 million. And essential services – already insufficient and uneven across the country – are stretched to breaking point as Afghan refugees return in record numbers. 

Over 2.6 million Afghans returned in 2025, bringing the number who have returned in the last two years to over 4 million.

And the situation for those returnees as they come back is particularly precarious. Many arrive with few possessions, hosted in already distressed communities that are ill-equipped to receive them and in an economy that cannot provide for them.

Women and children made up 60 per cent of all returns this year, returning to a country where women and girls are denied opportunities to study, work, or even in some cases receive healthcare. 

With 2.5 million Afghans in Pakistan, a large majority of whom have recently seen their legal status in-country revoked, the potential impact of further mass returns is alarming. 

Madame President,

In August and then again in November, Afghanistan experienced two major earthquakes, which killed thousands of people, damaged thousands of homes, and destroyed entire villages. 

In addition, drought conditions have engulfed the country continuing into the winter months, directly impacting 3.4 million people, but also leading to lower crop production and accelerated groundwater depletion.  

Madame President,

Despite limited funding, the UN and our partners have continued to deliver as best we can. Through the OCHA-managed Central Emergency Response Fund, CERF, and my thanks to all of you who announced contributions to the 2026 fund yesterday, we have released over $40 million in additional funding to support the surge in returns, the earthquake response and anticipatory action – that is where we prepare for future shocks – to stave off the worst effects of the drought.

However, increasing human rights restrictions – particularly on Afghan women staff – have made life for many Afghans ever more difficult, and created extra burdens on the implementation of our work. I look forward to hearing more on this challenge from Ms. Negina Yari in just a few moments.

In early September, as you have heard, national women UN staff were barred from entering UN compounds. Unacceptable. Over three months later these restrictions remain. Unacceptable. Both men and women colleagues continue to help their affected communities, but the absence of women from the workplace serves as yet another tragic reminder of the unacceptable restrictions that Afghan women continue to face. I want to thank our outstanding women colleagues who do such extraordinary work on all our behalf.  

In late October a further restriction was imposed: almost all national women humanitarian workers were prohibited from operating at the Islam Qala reception center along the Iranian border, where thousands of returns have been reported daily. This has limited women’s access to essential protection and health services.  

We have secured the resumption of work for a small number of female health staff, and limited life-saving health services have been restored, but other operations still remain suspended. 

So I echo the call from the Secretary-General for the de facto authorities to remove all these restrictions immediately and to let female staff work safely, fully and meaningfully across all areas of our work. We need them. Afghanistan needs them. And we must also increase the proportion of our funding and our support that goes to women-led organizations. 

Madame President,

I’ll turn now to resolution 2615 and our regular report – our eighth briefing to the Council on the report. Food, water, medicine, shelter and other help have continued to reach the people of Afghanistan thanks to the resolution’s humanitarian exception, which has eased suffering and saved lives. 

As previously reported, the exception covers operational payments necessary for humanitarian support, including rent on state-owned premises, the withholding of taxes on NGO staff income, and utilities such as water and electricity. It allows payment for visas and work permits, security for UN compounds and movements, fees essential to delivering support, including imports and landing, and licenses for NGO registration, communications equipment and municipal charges. 

The UN is exempt from paying taxes in Afghanistan. But these are routine costs across all humanitarian operations, in place since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. They are indispensable to the normal conduct of humanitarian operations. 

Madame President,

We are working in an incredibly complex environment, with operational, financial and reputational risks. These include pressures to amend local beneficiary lists; bureaucratic and administrative impediments that slow delivery of our aid; maneuvers to influence staff and contractor selection; restrictions, as we’ve set out, on Afghan women staff; and always the potential risk of aid diversion. 

We are aware of the risks and work to mitigate them. We are continually strengthening our risk mitigation systems, building capacity, and ensuring that any reported issues are quickly and transparently investigated and addressed. The humanitarian community is constantly striving to ensure that help effectively supports intended recipients while minimizing waste, fraud and abuse.

We are taking steps to prevent diversion in all our operations, applying standards in line with best practices. In the past year, we have further strengthened those risk mitigation efforts by:

• Developing multiple risk management frameworks, including in the case of agencies, funds and programmes, and regularly updating and integrating elements into Afghanistan’s Common Risk Mitigation Matrix.  
• We are also strengthening post-distribution monitoring, for example by ensuring that 15 per cent of cash transfers are fully audited to ensure against irregularities.
• We are applying biometric authentication or ID checks against vetted recipient lists as a standard practice.
• We are digitizing cash distribution tools to reduce risks of manipulation.
• We are vetting and rescreening financial service providers.
• And we are developing inter-agency complaint and feedback mechanisms to allow beneficiaries to report suspected diversion. 

And if diversion is detected, agencies halt distributions, they engage with the de facto authorities at regional and central levels, and those operations then resume only when strict compliance criteria are met. 

Through all these measures, it is my view that engagement with the de facto authorities at local and central levels is critical to preserve the impartiality of our response and the independence of the contractor, partner and staff selection processes.

All these steps together directly support the effective implementation of UNSCR [UN Security Council resolution] 2615.

Madame President,

As we reach the end of the year, underfunding has forced service closures, and resulted in scaled-back assistance to millions – ultimately it has cost lives.

Some specifics:

This winter is the first in years with almost no international food distribution. As a result, only about 1 million of the most vulnerable people have received food assistance during the lean season in 2025. And for comparison, that was 5.6 million last year and now down to a million.  

1.1 million children are missing out on life-saving nutrition as 305 nutrition service delivery points have been closed. With 3.7 million children in need of nutrition, including 1.7 million at risk of death if not treated, the results will be catastrophic. 1.7 million at risk of death.

422 health facilities were closed in 2025, leaving 3 million people without access to life-saving care. 

So, we are grateful to all of you who have continued to support Afghanistan. But as we look towards 2026, we risk a further contraction of life-saving help – at a time when food insecurity, health needs, strain on basic services, and protection risks are all rising.

To close, Madame President, three requests of this Council:

First – continue to support the implementation of the humanitarian exception in resolution 2615. The clarity it provides remains vital for our humanitarian action.

Second – and I cannot stress this strongly enough – insist that women humanitarian staff can do their jobs without restrictions. There can be no effective response without them. This must be non-negotiable.

And third – fund the Global Humanitarian Overview appeal that I launched on Monday. We are looking for $23 billion globally to save 87 million people, including many inside Afghanistan. Otherwise, humanitarians will be forced to make even more brutal cuts, with devastating consequences for the population. 

Thank you.