What we do
What we do
The people of Afghanistan require urgent support to meet their basic needs. Substantial investments in water infrastructure, sustainable agriculture, alternative livelihoods, gender policy reform and macroeconomic stabilization are urgently needed, along with the stabilization of services supporting basic human needs, particularly health care and social services. These are essential to reduce the reliance on humanitarian actors to provide emergency assistance and to enable the transition to longer-term solutions.
Underpinned by data and an evidence-based approach, UNHCR's humanitarian, protection and durable solutions activities in Afghanistan include:
Protect Human Rights
Providing protection services is a life-saving mandate. UNHCR Afghanistan’s protection expertise is critical to ensure the centrality of protection and activities in line with the needs identified, across the humanitarian response and the Nexus, from displacement until a durable solution is found. UNHCR protection monitoring, including at the borders given the high number of returns, enables a full understanding of the risks and needs of displaced populations and ensures targeting of those furthest behind. Housing needs and lack of civil documentation are consistently cited as the main concerns by returnees. Legal aid activities, to facilitate civil registration, documentation and access to rights and services and prevent risk of statelessness are therefore critical.
Respond to Emergencies
Emergency response is conducted to respond to life-threatening needs, to respond to needs of forcibly returned refugees, and for protection, assistance, and reintegration, notably following the Herat Earthquakes and the returns from Pakistan.
Shelter activities protect individuals and the family unit and are core to UNHCR’s life-saving humanitarian response and medium to longer-term programming. Return monitoring shows that 87 per cent of returnees have shelter/housing needs. Embedded within a solutions framework that includes livelihoods and access to services, shelter yields further protection dividends.
Cash-based interventions as a modality for protection is critical notably, for the most vulnerable (especially women and girls) and promotes freedom of choice, agency and ultimately human dignity by enabling cash recipients to utilize cash to best meet their needs.
Cluster coordination ensures efficient and effective humanitarian response and centrality of protection.
Building Better Futures
Education activities are conducted for child protection purposes, providing child-friendly spaces, sustainable reintegration of returnees, and promote peaceful coexistence to mitigate displacement causes. Moreover, access to quality education contributes to combating early marriage and child labour, and creates conditions conducive to solutions.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) activities create conducive conditions for solutions, protection of women and children, and form life-saving response.
Livelihoods interventions underpin sustainable reintegration of returnees, peaceful coexistence, social cohesion, facilitate protection and empowerment of women, in particular single-female headed households, empowerment of youth, prevention of GBV, prevention of child labour, and the prevention of abuse and exploitation of women and children.
Community infrastructure and energy, climate resilience and adaptation ensure integrated and sustainable humanitarian response.
Health interventions in remote and underserved communities, create conditions conducive to solutions, providing ante and post-natal support, respond to Gender-based Violence (GBV), child protection, and provide Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS).
Cross-cutting
Integrated data and protection analysis serves as the foundation for UNHCR’s planning, interventions, monitoring and evaluation. Through age, gender, and diversity (AGD) disaggregated data and protection analysis, UNHCR informs its own as well as programmes for other actors in the country, including in the context of large-scale displacement or returns, with the aim to focus on reaching those who are furthest behind, especially women and girls.
Solutions from the Start: The humanitarian, development and peacebuilding (HDP) nexus are strengthened, and durable solutions are promoted through solutions activities in education, health, livelihoods, shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene, community infrastructure and energy, and climate resilience and adaptation.
Empowerment of women is at the core of all protection and solutions interventions in Afghanistan. The operation ensures programming by women for women, and prioritization of women in beneficiary selection, financial inclusion, technical and vocational education.
Operations management, leadership, coordination, and logistics ensures effective delivery of services, while working in coordination with other responding agencies ensures UNHCR’s positioning in an internally displaced people (IDP) setting.
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Finding durable solutions for forcibly displaced people, including returnees, is core to the mandate of UNHCR given by the UN General Assembly. It is with this in mind, that UNHCR has established the Priority Areas of Return and Reintegration (PARRs) programme in Afghanistan.
