International funding for Afghanistan’s humanitarian response has fallen from 96% to 26% over the past five years, even as more than six million people have returned from neighboring countries and communities face mounting economic and climate pressures, the Norwegian Refugee Council said.
Afghanistan’s annual humanitarian response plan was nearly 96 percent funded in 2021, according to the NRC. That figure fell to 42 percent in 2025, and only 26 percent of the funding required for 2026 has been provided so far.
The decline is forcing humanitarian organizations to scale back food, water, shelter and health assistance at a time of substantial need, the organization said in a statement marking five years since the Taliban returned to power.
“NATO countries have forgotten their solemn promises to Afghan girls and boys and turned their backs on Afghan civilians,” Jan Egeland, the NRC’s secretary general, said.
Egeland said humanitarian organizations were confronting growing needs with diminishing resources, while restrictions on women and girls had continued to expand.
“A growing funding gap is forcing humanitarian organisations to scale down food, water, shelter and medical assistance to homeless and starving Afghan families,” he said.
Six million return amid shrinking resources
The funding decline has coincided with the return of more than six million Afghans from neighboring countries since late 2023, according to the NRC, placing additional pressure on a country already struggling with poverty, recurring climate shocks and regional tensions.
Many returnees have arrived with few resources and limited prospects for finding work. The NRC said up to 73 percent of returnees remain unemployed.
“Shelter and livelihood support remains among the most critical needs of returnees,” Egeland said. “Shrinking aid funding means that many families are left without a proper roof over their heads, and are struggling to feed their children.”
Mohammad Jabbar, who returned from Pakistan, told the NRC that families like his urgently needed housing and ways to earn an income.
“Most of the returnees, like us, urgently need shelter and opportunities to earn a living,” he said.
Taliban have proposed distributing land plots to returnees as a central part of their response. But the NRC said the scale of returns, complicated distribution procedures, insufficient investment and a lack of essential services were making successful reintegration difficult.
NRC urges renewed international support
The NRC said Afghanistan’s humanitarian pressures extend beyond the returnee crisis. Recurring climate shocks and regional tensions have strained communities, while Taliban restrictions have sharply reduced opportunities and public participation for women and girls.
Against that backdrop, the organization said, the decline in international assistance risks worsening food insecurity, homelessness and other humanitarian needs.
The NRC called for increased development investment to support livelihoods and longer-term economic recovery. It also urged international governments to engage with Taliban to ensure political disputes do not disrupt humanitarian assistance and basic services.
Egeland said such engagement was necessary to allow vulnerable Afghans to rebuild their lives.
Five years after the Taliban takeover and the withdrawal of Western forces, the NRC said the widening gap between Afghanistan’s humanitarian needs and the resources available to address them was leaving aid organizations increasingly unable to provide assistance on the scale required.
