''The food security situation in Afghanistan is alarming with more than 14 million people – one-third of all Afghans - experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above) between March and May 2021.

The situation in rural and urban areas will become even more critical over the next few months, due to the combined impact of COVID-19, high food prices and widespread unemployment, and the La Niña weather phenomenon which has led to below-average rainfall in the 2020/21 season and is expected to impact both irrigated and rainfed wheat production in 2021. This will result in a below-average wheat harvest as well as reduced pastures and affect livestock health and production. Furthermore, the conflict situation is expected to worsen over the spring summer months and will likely lead to high levels of internal displacement and worsening food insecurity.

Despite these increasing needs, the required scale-up in the response has not yet been possible due to severe underfunding: only 12% of the funding required for the 2021 Humanitarian Response Plan has so far been received. We urgently need to plug this gap in order to meet the food security needs of highly vulnerable people across the country.''

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Report Available here: https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/en/operations/afghanistan/document/fsac-advocacy-note-may-2021