Do IDPs have access to livelihood opportunities?
UNHCR, UNHCR Regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific (RBAP): External Update: Afghanistan Situation #22, As of 04 December 2022, 22 December 2022
“UNHCR and the Aga Khan Development Network’s First Micro Finance Bank Afghanistan (FMFB-A) launched a new microfinancing scheme to assist internally displaced people (IDPs), returnees and host communities engaged in small business activities.”
UNHCR, Flash External Update: Afghanistan Situation #19, 17 August 2022
“Support to IDP returnees: A priority for UNHCR’s work in Afghanistan remains the sustainable return and reintegration of displaced Afghans to their places of origin. Over 110,000 IDP returnees have been identified by UNHCR in 2022, bringing the total number of IDP returnees identified by UNHCR since 2021 to more than 989,000. [...]
Refugee returns: Since the start of the year, some 1,576 Afghan refugees have returned under UNHCR’s facilitated voluntary repatriation programme, including 231 from Iran and 1,340from Pakistan. This figure surpasses the 1,300 Afghans who came back during the full year of 2021, and almost triples the number who returned up to this point in 2020. Returnees have indicated that the main reasons for their returns movements from Iran and Pakistan include costs of living and lack of employment opportunities in their host countries, reunification with family in Afghanistan, improved security situation, and land allocation opportunities in Afghanistan. As highlighted above, UNHCR provides cash assistance to those returning to help support their reintegration in Afghanistan, while also running programmes and projects in priority areas of return and reintegration.”
UNHCR, 2021 Multi sectorial Rapid Assessments Analysis, June 2022
"On average 72 percent of male-headed IDP households indicated not being able to work and cover daily expenses while amongst female-headed households the number leaped to 81 percent. Similarly, amongst IDP returnee households, the rates are 68 percent and 76 percent, respectively."
UNHCR, Afghanistan: UNHCR Operational update - April 2022, 8 June 2022
“UNHCR provided life-saving multi-sectoral assistance to more than 248,562 new IDPs and those affected by armed
security, nutrition, and other needs. […] UNHCR continues investments in crucial areas such as health and education
to support the sustainable reintegration of refugees and IDPs who previously returned to their areas of origin or may do so in the future. The investments also benefit local communities and displaced people living in areas of return.”
UNHCR, PERSONS WITH SPECIFIC NEEDSRESPONSE SNAPSHOT (01 January - 30 April 2021), 7 June 2022
“Individuals reached with direct cash or in-kind assistance and/or referred to other service providers […] Of the 3,163 individuals assessed, cumulatively 844 directly benefited from cash and/or in-kind assistance while 1,965 were referred for medical, livelihoods, shelter and other assistance […] 13% [Reached] 67% [Remaining] […]”
UNHCR, CORE RELIEF ITEMSRESPONSE SNAPSHOT (01 January - 30 April 2022), 7 June 2022
“Individuals reached through provision of core relief items. (55,510 households reached against 90,000 target households) […] During reporting period, UNHCR ensured timely delivery and distribution of Emergency Shelter and Non-Food Items (ES/NFI) to support the internally displaced populations and host communities. [see infographic for provinces reached] […]”
US DOS, 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Afghanistan, 12 April 2022
“Limited opportunities to earn a livelihood following the initial displacement often led to secondary displacement,
making tracking of vulnerable persons difficult.”
UNOCHA, Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
Martin Griffiths’ opening remarks at the High-level Pledging Event for Afghanistan, 31 March 2022
“Six out of 10 people in Afghanistan need humanitarian aid, among them almost 6 million people have been uprooted inside the country. They need food and healthcare but also livelihood support. The economy is too weak to sustain the lives of its people.”
The Guardian, ‘I’ve already sold my daughters; now, my kidney’: winter in Afghanistan’s slums, 23 January 2022
“Crushing poverty is forcing starving displaced people to make desperate choices.
The temperature is dropping to below zero in western Afghanistan and Delaram Rahmati is struggling to find food for her eight children. Since leaving the family home in the country’s Badghis province four years ago, the Rahmatis have been living in a mud hut with a plastic roof in one of Herat city’s slums. Drought made their village unliveable and the land unworkable. Like an estimated 3.5 million Afghans who have been forced to leave their homes, the Rahmatis now live in a neighbourhood for internally displaced people (IDP). There are no jobs. But the 50-year-old has hospital fees to pay for two of her sons, one of whom is paralysed and the other who has mental illness, as well as medicine for her husband. “I was forced to sell two of my daughters, an eight- and six-year-old,” she says. Rahmati says she sold her daughters a few months ago for 100,000 afghani each (roughly £700), to families she doesn’t know. Her daughters will stay with her until they reach puberty and then be handed over to strangers. [...]”
IPC - Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, Afghanistan: Acute Food Insecurity Situation September - October 2021 and Projection for November 2021 - March 2022, 25 October 2021
“Usually, because of the severity of the conflict and its sudden nature, most of the livelihood assets of IDPs are either looted, sold at very meagre prices and/or killed in the case of livestock or lost. IDPs often migrate without the necessary legal documents of identity and school certificates of their children, which hinders their access to support services. They also pay very high prices for transportation to move their families to a safer location. Therefore, in the absence of agriculture and livestock-based livelihoods and with no urban labour skills, they are left with almost zero livelihood options. Most of the IDPs bring agriculture-based livelihood skills to these urban areas where there is no market for their skills. Their arrival increases the pressure on the local job market, reducing wages and adding strain on infrastructure, ultimately fuelling tensions and conflict with the local population.”
Thomson Reuters Foundation news, Agencies distribute food, blankets, cash as hunger and cold threaten
conflict by the end of April. In addition, cash for winterization was provided to 93,748 people to support their food
Afghanistan, 13 October 2021
“Aid agencies delivered food, blankets and cash to hundreds of displaced families in Kabul on Wednesday as humanitarian assistance begins to trickle into Afghanistan following warnings the country faces potentially catastrophic famine this winter.
The distribution of aid to 324 families represents a tiny fraction of the needs in Afghanistan, which faces a severe drought as well as a near collapse of its economy following the withdrawal of Western support. [...]
But the challenge of providing the aid is massive. As well as farmers and rural people displaced by drought, poverty has extended into the cities where widespread unemployment has forced many to try to sell their household goods to raise money. "Around 50,000 Afghan people from different provinces of the country have been displaced because of recent conflicts and are in Kabul. Our assistance continues to needy people every week," said UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch.”
AVA Press, Taliban begins relocating thousands of IDPs from Kabul, 3 October 2021
“Officials of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan say that they have begun the relocation process of thousands of
Internally Displaced People from Kabul to their respective provinces on Saturday, October 2.
Afghan Voice Agency (AVA)_Over two thousand families were displaced mainly from the Northern provinces of Afghanistan after conflicts intensified between the Taliban and the security forces of the previous Afghan government.
They were settled in the parks of Kabul along with their children for more than two months.
Head of refugees and returnees of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Abdul Matin said that 1,005 displaces families from -e-Naw Park in Kabul have been relocated in collaboration with different aid agencies.
Previously, the UNHCR had warned humanitarian crisis if not addressed the problems of IDPs as winter is approaching.
On the other hand, the also distributed humanitarian aid to the people in Kabul.
According to the statistics of UNHCR, around 300,000 people have been forced to displace due to heavy conflicts in
2020.”
CARE, CARE Restarts Afghanistan Humanitarian Response - Provides Seeds, Tools, Fertilizer Ahead of Lean Growing Season and Ongoing Food Crisis, 30 September 2021
“In the last week, CARE has restarted its emergency humanitarian response, providing a small number of
vulnerable displaced families with financial assistance to spend on key needs.
Similarly, CARE resumed some of its crucial food security and livelihoods support to small-scale farmers in several provinces - including, fertilizer, tools, seeds and trainings as part of a programme to encourage women to develop home gardens and household level livelihoods options.”
OCHA, Afghanistan, Weekly Humanitarian Update (30 August – 5 September 2021), 13 September 2021
“KEY FIGURES
IDPs IN 2021 (AS OF 5 SEPTEMBER)
592,531 People displaced by conflict (verified)
280,244 Received assistance”