Humanitarian aid in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021

Afghanistan faces one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world with 73 % of its population dependent on humanitarian aid in 2023. Not only have the past twenty years of fighting taken its toll on the Afghan people, but Afghanistan has also faced natural disasters, mismanagement, politics, mass violence, extreme poverty, overpopulation and involuntary migration. Afghanistan has become one of the world’s biggest humanitarian complex crisis. The amount of people in need has grown steadily worse, from 6.5 million in 2018 to 29.2 million in 2023. Many changes occurred in humanitarian aid after the Taliban takeover including the approach of donors to development and humanitarian aid, Taliban’s attitude towards women, the change in key implementing organizations, and the steady increase of the amount of people in need. This thesis focuses on the years before the Taliban takeover (2018-2021) and after (2021-2023) by analyzing the following characteristics in each period – type of humanitarian crisis, the proportion of the humanitarian crisis, the international response, key implementing aid agencies, humanitarian sectors, aid implementation and negative effects. This evaluation is useful,because it provides better orientation in the Afghan humanitarin aid for the stakeholders and possibly adds to the better positioning for future humanitarian efforts. These efforts are crucial to the Afghan people, especially because Afghanistan has never been more significant. While the number of people in need have reached catastrophic numbers, the humanitarian funding has decreased. One can only hope and pray for a resolution.