The US has been the largest donor to the Afghanistan humanitarian response since 2013, demonstrating unwavering commitment to meeting life-saving and life-sustaining needs countrywide. In 2024 alone, the US was the largest contributor to the Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP), providing $736.6 million (45 per cent of total funding requested).
With US and other donors’ funding, humanitarian responders in Afghanistan were able to reach 20.4 million people in 2024 with at least one form of humanitarian assistance. Among them, 3.4 million people received three different types of sectoral support. Women represented 29 per cent of the total number of people reached.
Over the years, support from all donors has been instrumental in strengthening emergency responses during critical moments, including the escalation of conflict in 2014, the devastating drought in 2018, and the political transition in 2021, all of which triggered widespread and escalating humanitarian needs. It has also played a pivotal role in averting famine in 2021 and 2022 through robust support for food security and nutrition interventions.
Additional resources are urgently required to enable humanitarian actors to mount an equally commensurate response to the returnee crisis. In 2025, some 1.6 million Afghans have returned from Iran (1.3 million) and Pakistan (348,000), including 539,000 between 1 and 26 July, stretching relief efforts at the border to breaking point and placing further pressure on basic service provision in already over-strained host communities.
At the same time, Afghanistan is facing the prospect of a severe drought across the northern, northeastern, central highlands and western regions following below-average rainfall in nearly all provinces – a trend anticipated to persist through the end of 2025. Alarmingly, current conditions are now comparable to those observed during the severe 2018 drought.¹ While $16.6 million in CERF and AHF funding was allocated in April to help mitigate the impact of these dry spells through anticipatory action, further funding is required to prevent large-scale displacement and further deterioration of food and water security.
The US suspension of foreign assistance is having far-reaching consequences on humanitarian operations, with the situation continuing to worsen following the 4 April decision that all remaining US aid to Afghanistan – totaling $562 million – would be suspended. Moreover, the recently passed Rescissions Act could have further implications on funding previously assigned and/or disbursed for Afghanistan for 2025.
In addition to US funding cuts, other donors – including France, Sweden and the United Kingdom – have also reduced their official development assistance and humanitarian budgets.
The implications of the cuts are already visible on the funding for the 2025 HNRP, which has received approximately $144 million less for immediate relief efforts as of August 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. At the same time, around 800,000 people less have been assisted as of May 2025 (10.2 million) compared to May 2024 (11 million).
In response to the funding crisis, the Afghanistan Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) has reprioritized the 2025 HNRP by focusing on 145 of Afghanistan’s 401 districts with the highest severity of needs, as well as the most urgent life-saving and protection-related activities. This exercise had led to an urgently prioritized HNRP target of 12.5 million people and a financial requirement of $1.63 billion.
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