The return of approximately 5.8 million Afghans from Iran and Pakistan since late 2023 has ushered the displacement crisis in Afghanistan into a new phase, placing immense pressure on cities and surrounding areas. This trend continues amid already limited access to adequate shelter, basic services, employment opportunities, and infrastructure in many of these regions.<\/p>\n
According to reports, Afghanistan is still confronting one of the world’s most complex displacement crises, rooted in years of conflict, economic stagnation, vulnerability to climate change, and large-scale returns from neighboring countries. Nearly half of the country’s population now requires humanitarian aid, with displaced families disproportionately facing poverty, food insecurity, shelter shortages, and climate-related risks.<\/p>\n
In this context, international organizations stress that responding to the situation cannot rely solely on short-term aid but requires sustainable solutions. These solutions include strengthening urban systems, improving infrastructure, creating livelihood opportunities, and enhancing local governance capacity. The majority of reintegration efforts for returnees and internally displaced persons take place in cities and peripheral areas, where service shortages and climate vulnerabilities pose significant challenges.<\/p>\n
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) announced that under the “UN Strategic Framework for Afghanistan 2023\u20132027” and the Sustainable Solutions Framework for Internally Displaced Persons, it is implementing a series of area-based programs in high-return areas. According to UN-Habitat, the focus of these programs is on improving shelter, strengthening housing, land, and property rights, expanding access to essential services, urban planning, and increasing resilience to climate change.<\/p>\n
The agency added that projects funded by the European Union and the Afghanistan-specific trust fund include neighborhood improvements, support for incremental housing, development of climate-resilient infrastructure, and creation of job opportunities for vulnerable communities. The declared aim of these initiatives is to improve living conditions and reduce the risk of secondary displacement in high-return areas.<\/p>\n
For more than two decades, Afghanistan has been one of the countries with the highest populations of internally displaced persons and returnees in the region. This situation, compounded by recent political and economic developments and a new wave of returns, has placed additional pressure on cities and their limited local resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UN reports Afghanistan faces the world’s most complex humanitarian crisis as 5.8 million returnees strain cities and services amid ongoing displacement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-social-affairs","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}