Emergency Health and Nutrition response in Afghanistan With over 18 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan remains one of the worse worldwide, impacted by years of conflict, natural disasters and COVID19 pandemic. The recent changes in the Country’s government have brought new uncertainty around the provision of life saving services and the impact that economic decline will have on the already highly vulnerable population. The mistrust from the international community affects the potential for resource mobilization which culminated with the suspension of the Sahatmandi project funded by the World Bank (WB) that was providing Basic Package of Health Services (BHPS) funding to the former Government. While the WB is now looking into alternatives for channeling funds, health and nutrition facilities are at risk of closing down, leaving thousands of children with malnutrition at high risk of death.

Months of intense conflict during the first half of 2021, have further impacted the availability of health structures and significantly reduced the capacity of the existing first aid trauma posts (FATPs) in Country. In 2021, countrywide trauma needs increased by 50% in comparison to the previous year. Even prior to August 15th women and girls disproportionately lacked access to trauma care, facing higher levels of morbidity and mortality, especially in rural areas and this trend is expected to further exacerbate under the new political scenario. Levels of malnutrition in Country continue to rise while Afghanistan is facing the second drought in the past four years. More than half of children under five faced malnutrition in 2021 with a 16 percent increase for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and many nutrition services were interrupted during active fighting. 

Under the proposed 6-month project Relief International aims to support the provision of gender responsive immediate and lifesaving health assistance for trauma affected patients in urban areas in Kapisa and Parwan Provinces as well as primary health care through integrated health and nutrition support to children under 5 and pregnant and lactating women (PLW) living in IDP settlements and hard to reach (HTR) areas in Parwan province.

Taking into consideration the high prevalence of GBV in Afghanistan and the need to protect survivors, GBV response will be mainstreamed into RI’s health programming, through capacity building of healthcare workers on protection principles, GBV and survivor-centered approaches, with a focus on confidentiality and do-no-harm principle. RI will also train female staff in PFA in order to provide psychological support to women at-risk or survivors of GBV. Health staff will provide immediate medical response to identified GBV survivors and will be trained on safe referrals to existing services. RI is working closely with the protection cluster to ensure we have an updated mapping of service providers and use the corresponding referral pathways.
All activities will reflect COVID19 mitigation measures. Out of the total 18,200 beneficiaries target across all components, 7,100 will be women and 6,800 children.

RI has worked in Afghanistan since 2001 and in 2019, the French NGO MRCA joined the Relief International Alliance as MRCA/RI-France, greatly expanding RI’s capacity to improve the health of communities throughout Afghanistan. MRCA began the implementation of health projects in Afghanistan in 1993, in collaboration with the Afghan Ministry of Health (MoPH) and with the aim to help facilitating national health services and capacity building through staff trainings. Building on strong technical expertise in Country and at Global level, during 2020/21 RI supported the running of 89 health facilities, 12 FTAP and 6 MHTs across Afghanistan with funding from WB, OCHA, UNICEF.