Afghanistan
Since the de facto authorities took over Kabul on 15 August 2021, the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated rapidly.
A man rides his bike through the street in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo: Mohammad Husaini
Overview
The freeze of international funding, natural disasters such as droughts, floods, and the June 2022 earthquake exacerbated an already precarious situation.
In the 2023 humanitarian response plan, 28.3 million people are targeted for humanitarian aid. Twenty million people – almost 50% of the population – currently face acute food insecurity. Within this complex crisis, women and girls are worse off. Afghanistan ranks lowest – place 170 – on the Women Peace and Security Index 2021. More than half of the female population in Afghanistan needs humanitarian support, but the rules imposed on gender-norms – both by the de facto authorities and families – impact women’s and girls’ access to and interaction with humanitarian aid negatively.
Our work
Working closely with UN Women and the Gender in Humanitarian Action (GiHA) working group members, Ground Truth Solutions and Salma Consulting set out to understand the perceptions of people in Afghanistan on how aid is provided to women and girls.
There has arguably never been a more critical time to actively listen to the voices of women and girls in Afghanistan, and yet opportunities to do so are limited, and complicated. By asking communities in Afghanistan for their views on gender norms, access to, and quality of humanitarian assistance – especially for women – and working together with aid providers, donors, and policy makers, there is a chance to meet three objectives:
To formalise tracking perceptions of gender, cultural norms, and humanitarian assistance in the humanitarian response;
To contribute to knowledge-building in the Afghan context;
To understand how to best respond to the unique priorities, capacities, and needs of women and girls.
“We are women, we cannot do anything, but we can ask male members in our family to gather people and talk with them to address any issues.”
