Policy paper

UK–Afghanistan development partnership summary, July 2023

Published 17 July 2023

Introduction

The Strategy for International Development (IDS) places development at the heart of the UK’s foreign policy. It sets out a new approach to development, anchored in patient, long-term partnerships tailored to the needs of the countries we work with, built on mutual accountability and transparency. This approach goes beyond aid and brings the combined power of the UK’s global economic, scientific, security and diplomatic strengths to our development partnerships. Our 4 priorities are to deliver honest, reliable investment, provide women and girls with the freedom they need to succeed, step up our life-saving humanitarian work, and take forward our work on climate change, nature and global health. The Integrated Review Refresh (IR23) reiterates that sustainable development is central to UK foreign policy and sets out how the UK will go further and faster on development to reduce poverty and reinvigorate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This country development partnership summary details how the IDS and IR23 will be put into practice with Afghanistan.

Country context

The UK has provided development and humanitarian support to Afghanistan for over 2 decades, spending some £3.7 billion on assistance since 2002. During this period the UK contributed to improved health outcomes with basic health services reaching 85% of the population, interventions such as this resulted in a halving of maternal and infant mortality. Primary and secondary school enrolment increased to 9.6 million in 2018, from 1.1 million in 2001. UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) for humanitarian assistance reached over 6 million people from 2014 to 2018, and a further 4.4 million people were reached between 2019 and 2020. Overall the UK’s investment had a positive impact on health services and education, expanding Afghanistan’s infrastructure, and empowering women and girls.

However the Taliban takeover in August 2021 had a dramatic impact on the country’s social, economic and geopolitical situation. Having been heavily dependent on external assistance, the takeover by the Taliban resulted in Gross Domestic Product falling by 20 to 30% and the Taliban authorities’ expenditure is now entirely reliant on domestic revenues. The freezing of Afghanistan’s offshore central bank assets along with the limited correspondent banking relationships has made cross-border transactions challenging and limited liquidity in the economy. These deteriorating economic conditions, combined with ongoing drought and the legacy of decades of conflict dramatically increased the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance.

At the beginning of 2023, the UN estimated that 28.3 million people, 2 thirds of the population, are in need of humanitarian assistance. Whilst many of these needs are focused around ensuring access to food, there is also a need to ensure that essential services such as healthcare, clean water, education and protection services are accessible. The widespread needs, and dramatic reduction in the ability of the authorities to provide these services has resulted in the UN humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan in 2023 being the largest ever on record, requesting a total of 4.6 billion US dollars. Since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, human rights violations against women and girls have increased dramatically. Girls are excluded from secondary and higher education, and women are banned from attending university: women are prevented from working in a range of sectors and have had limits placed on their freedom to travel. In December 2022 the Taliban issued a decree banning Afghan women from working for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and in April 2023 a similar decree was issued restricting the rights of Afghan women to work for the UN. The Taliban continues to pursue and implement policies that systematically exclude women from public life and undermine their human rights. This risks women and girls being disproportionately affected by the worst impacts of the continuing humanitarian and economic crises.

The UK’s overarching development priorities are providing emergency humanitarian assistance, and building the resilience of Afghans to better withstand the impacts of the current crisis. Despite the difficult operating environment, women and girls will remain at the heart of what we do, both in protecting the essential role women play in delivery assistance but also in ensuring women and girls continue to have access to assistance that is relevant to their needs.

The UK is one of the top 5 donors to Afghanistan and continually engages with major bilateral donors, including the US, EU, Germany, Japan, and the United Nations Mission to Afghanistan to continue supporting the people of Afghanistan in a principled manner. Our key implementing partners also include UN agencies, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, NGOs with the support of financial institutions, including the IMF, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. The UK government does not have a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, instead there is a UK mission to Afghanistan based in Doha.

Why and how: the UK’s development offer

The UK’s overall objectives in Afghanistan are broad and Afghanistan plays a critical role in regional stability. UK aims range from minimising national security threats to the UK originating from Afghanistan; limiting further economic and societal decline; providing lifesaving humanitarian support; promoting and defending human rights and encouraging political pluralism.

The UK’s development priorities align with the UK’s International Development Strategy – providing humanitarian assistance and putting women and girls to the fore in all that we do. Our ODA objectives will be delivered through our investment in programmes, through the engagement of our technical advisory cadres and supported by FCDO’s global diplomatic network.

Our offer focuses on the provision of life-saving humanitarian support, and supporting the resilience of Afghans through initiatives that provide basic services such as health and education, as well as building livelihoods. By strengthening resilience we help reduce dependence on humanitarian aid.

Our current objectives are therefore: (1) save lives through an effective humanitarian response, and (2) promote the economic, social stability and resilience of Afghans. These lists summarise the intended outcomes over the next 2 years and beyond:

Effective humanitarian response outcomes

1. Protection: marginalised and high-risk groups (including women and girls) receive protection services and assistance.

2. Multi-sectoral emergency assistance: People impacted by economic shocks, conflict and natural disasters receive timely and adequate humanitarian assistance.

3. Coordination, learning & capacity building: Strengthened delivery of humanitarian aid through stronger co-ordination, evidence and learning.

4. Food security: food security for prioritised communities does not significantly deteriorate with negative coping strategies minimised leading to decreased mortality for high-risk groups.

5. Demining: humanitarian emergency response and vulnerable communities supported through released land and explosive ordnance risk education.

Economic, social stability and resilience outcomes

1. Agriculture, livelihoods, and climate: basic in-year food needs are met through support to climate-smart agriculture and to income generation activities.

2. Health: to prevent the further deterioration of health outcomes with a focus on maintaining health access and options for women, girls and children.

3. Education: sustained access to education at the primary level and access to educational opportunities for adolescent girls.

We seek opportunities to leverage funding from the International Financial Institutions for the unprecedented levels of need in Afghanistan. The UK has been at the forefront of efforts to repurpose existing funds to support the Afghan people. In 2022 we successfully worked with the Asian Development Bank to make $405 million available. This is in addition to over $1 billion that the World Bank agreed to make available through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund for health, education, livelihoods and food security.

Our global diplomatic network will continue to work with the international community to rescind the authorities’ policies that repress women and girls. In all programmes we will ensure FCDO partners are able to reach at risk women and girls and that female staff continue to be supported to play an active role in the delivery of assistance.

Who we work with

The UK is a founding member of the Afghanistan Coordination Group (ACG), and previous donor co-chair. Through the ACG and the strategic thematic working groups we shape policy and programming. Bilaterally we work closely with other donors, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the international financial institutions to deliver sustained basic human needs interventions for the Afghan people. The UK is one of 3 donors who have observer status on the humanitarian country team in Afghanistan and one of 2 donors with observer status on the Humanitarian Access Group. These positions enable technical advisors to contribute to discussions on the overall response.

The UK works particularly closely with the World Bank on utilising the remaining funds held within the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) to support basic services and supporting rural and urban livelihoods. We also work closely with the Asian Development Bank to maintain Asian Development Fund financing to support the delivery of education and health services, alongside support to livelihoods and food security. We continue to work closely with the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), which the UK is the largest contributor centrally, to continue their support to the Afghanistan education system, as well as with the global Education Cannot Wait initiative. Through our central support to global health initiatives such as the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM), Global Alliance for Vaccination (GAVI); UNFPA’s Reproductive Health programme, and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) and through our bilateral support to the ARTF, we are continuing to support basic health care provision and the control and eradication of communicable diseases across Afghanistan.

Key programmes

The following are the top 3 bilateral aid programmes according to budgeted expenditure for 2023 to 2024:

Supporting Humanitarian Assistance and Protection in Afghanistan programme

This will deliver life-saving protection services, multi-sectoral emergency assistance (including food, shelter, non-food items and support for humanitarian system coordination and monitoring and learning across FCDO’s main humanitarian programmes. This is a new programme for 2023.

Food Security and Livelihoods Programme

This will assist millions of Afghan people in a safe, dignified and coordinated way to avert famine and prevent excess mortality. It will deliver food assistance, integrated emergency WASH, nutrition and health support and protect livelihoods. This is a new programme for 2023.

Afghanistan Multi-Year Humanitarian Response Programme

This was the key programme for the UK’s response to the crisis arising from August 2021. It will close in 2023.

• in financial year 2021 to 2022, UK funding to the UN Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund supported 4.3 million people with emergency support for health, WASH, protection, shelter, food, livelihoods, and education, of which 2.3 million were women and girls
• in financial year 2022 to 2023, UK aid support included £16 million provided to the Afghanistan Red Cross 2022 appeal, helping them reach 2 million people with medical consultations at 33 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) supported hospitals
• in financial year 2022 to 2023, through the World Food Programme, the UK supported 4.1 million people with emergency food, cash and nutrition assistance, of which 2 million were women and girls

Additionally Supporting Afghanistan Basic Services (SABS) programme works to deliver immediately required essential services. With a particular focus on women and girls, it supports access to health, education and livelihoods services.

We plan to expand our support to the provision of basic services to improve access to services such as health and education for the Afghan population.

Lesson learning from the Afghanistan Multi Year Humanitarian Response Programme has prompted a move to a number of smaller more agile programmes which is now reflected in the Afghanistan Portfolio.

The Assurance and Learning Programme started in 2022 to strengthen oversight across the Afghanistan bilateral ODA portfolio by providing independent third-party monitoring and portfolio monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL).

Financial information

Initial allocations have been set internally to deliver the priorities set out in the International Development Strategy (May 2022) and the Integrated Review Refresh 2023, based on the FCDO’s Spending Review 2021 settlement.

The department’s spending plans for the period 2022 to 2023 to 2024 to 2025 have been revisited to ensure His Majesty’s Government continues to spend around 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) on ODA. This was in the context of the significant and unexpected costs incurred to support the people of Ukraine and Afghanistan escape oppression and conflict and find refuge in the UK, and others seeking asylum. The government provided additional resources of £1 billion in 2022 to 2023 and £1.5 billion in 2023 to 2024 to help meet these unanticipated costs. The government remains committed to returning ODA spending to 0.7% of GNI when the fiscal situation allows, in line with the approach confirmed by the House of Commons in July 2021.

The country development partnership summaries include the breakdown of programme budgets allocated to individual countries for 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025. These allocations are indicative and subject to revision as, by its nature, the department’s work is dynamic. Programme allocations are continually reviewed to respond to changing global needs, including humanitarian crises, fluctuations in GNI and other ODA allocation decisions.

It should be noted that these figures do not reflect the full range of UK ODA spending in these individual countries as they do not include spend delivered via core contributions to multilateral organisations, or regional programmes delivered by the FCDO’s central departments. Other UK government departments also spend a large amount of ODA overseas. Details of ODA spent by other UK government departments can be found in their annual report and accounts and the Statistics for International Development.

Figure 1: 2023 to 2024 Allocation by sector. Humanitarian preparedness and respond, 71%; women and girls, 9%; climate, nature and health, 6%; other, 14%.

FCDO Official Development Assistance allocation

Allocated ODA budget for financial year 2023 to 2024	Indicative ODA budget for financial year 2024 to 2025
£100 million	£151 million

Of ODA programmes in this country in 2022 to 2023, 75% are marked as being principally or significantly focused on promoting gender equality and 25% are marked as being principally or significantly focused on disability inclusion.