14.2M estimated to be facing acute food insecurity in Afghanistan, UN agency says

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) — An estimated 14.2 million people in Afghanistan currently face acute food insecurity, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Friday.

The organization's latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report for March-April 2024 points to a "continuing positive trend" with 14.2 million people, or 37% of Afghanistan's population, estimated to be facing acute food insecurity, FAO country representative Richard Trenchard told reporters in Geneva.

This marks a dramatic fall from early 2022, when nearly 23 million people, some 55% of the population, were facing acute food insecurity, a category known as IPC3+, Trenchard said

"It is a scale and speed of fall without recent historic precedent," he added.

The decline is a testament to the resilience of Afghanistan's farmers and its people, improvements in climatic conditions, growing stabilization in the Afghan economy, and "enormous" levels of humanitarian and non-humanitarian assistance, he said.

However, he cautioned, it does not change the fact that Afghanistan "remains amongst the world's largest food insecurity crises in absolute terms."

"And more than 2 million people still face emergency levels of food insecurity, IPC4," he said, warning that the food security situation remains "extremely fragile," particularly due to the likelihood of climate-induced and other shocks but also due to economic fragility.

"It remains critically important to continue investing in both humanitarian food assistance and emergency agricultural assistance to sustain the downward trend," he added.