There are now 24% of the population of Afghanistan living in urban areas. At the core of the urbanisation trend lies the complex question of migration and displacement in a country, where a large share of the population is or has been in movement. This urbanisation trend comes with increasing urban poverty and food insecurity: the latest National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA) found that 34% of the urban population were food insecure as against 29% of the rural population. This confirms the necessity to look into the acute problem of urban food insecurity in the country to reduce the risk of chronic food crises in Afghan cities. Surprisingly, whilst urban food security is increasingly considered to be a priority by national and international stakeholders, there are important gaps in the knowledge of its socio-economic determinants and its consequences, leading to gaps in the provision of services and assistance to the urban poor.
In order to fill this gap, People in Need (PIN) and the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) commissioned Samuel Hall to conduct a large urban poverty study in Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad, Mazar-e- Sharif and Kandahar. The study is based on a 5,400-household survey and was presented to key stakeholders during a series of consultation in September 2014.
Executive Summary
This urban poverty study shows alarmingly high levels of poverty and food insecurity and low levels of resilience in the main Afghan cities.
The urban poor are the first impacted by the slowdown of the Afghan economy and the political turmoil linked to the presidential elections and are now in distress.