2010 UNHCR country operations profile - Afghanistan

Working environment

The context

The outcome of Afghanistan's presidential elections will likely indicate whether the future prospects for stable government will be characterized by insecurity and political crisis, or incremental progress. The protection of civilians may persist as a major issue but deep poverty remains the biggest threat to life.

The management of migration has already superseded refugees and IDPs as the pre-eminent population movement challenge in Afghanistan, although the Government has yet to adapt its policies accordingly.

Achieving sustainable return and reintegration is becoming more challenging in the current context. Voluntary repatriation has as a consequence slowed down. A more gradual return at this juncture supports a more sustainable return as the capacity of Afghanistan to absorb more returnees is stretched. In 2010 some reintegration progress is anticipated but it will be insufficient at this point to radically reverse current patterns. Return movements may be substantial in absolute terms, but marginal to overall solutions and to much larger migratory flows.

The needs

The return of more than 5 million refugees since 2002 has increased the estimated population of Afghanistan by over 20 per cent. In the areas of highest return, as many as one in three people is a returnee. This level of return has put a strain on receiving communities struggling to cope with already limited resources. While reconstruction and development efforts have advanced, security has become more problematic, and Afghanistan's capacity to absorb more returns is limited, without further targeted support.

The overwhelming needs articulated by returnees are for shelter, water and livelihoods support. UNHCR uses three methods to support a country-wide assessment of needs that informs the reintegration strategy: an annual field survey; participatory assessments within the age, gender and diversity mainstreaming framework; and field monitoring of protection and human rights.

The cash grant for returnees addresses important needs in the first months of return, such as transport and food. However, it is not enough to sustain return. The 2010 operations plan has a strengthened shelter, water and livelihoods component in order to more effectively sustain returnee reintegration in these challenging circumstances. Furthermore, a community-based approach supports receiving communities and mitigates the potential for conflict over resources, particularly in ethnically mixed areas.

Children face a wide range of protection concerns, including child labour, smuggling and human trafficking, and early or forced marriage. Doing more to address the livelihood needs of vulnerable returnee families is one way to address the economic factors that can create such protection risks. UNHCR will also continue to support safe houses for females at risk.

UNHCR is leading efforts to update the national strategy on internally displaced persons (IDPs) and improve contingency planning. UNHCR's operational response is focused on the protracted caseload as well as those recently displaced by conflict. IDPs often live with family members or people from their place of origin in areas of displacement. To date, return has been the preferred durable solution. However, for small, residual populations, local integration is also pursued. UNHCR will continue to build alliances with development partners to make IDP returns sustainable.

Afghanistan hosts a small number of refugees and asylum-seekers, mostly from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq and Pakistan. In the absence of national institutional capacity, UNHCR carries out refugee status determination (RSD) and has succeeded in resettling a small number of refugees.

Main objectives

Favourable protection environment

• Monitor the physical, legal and material safety of returnees and the reintegration of returnees through direct field work and partnerships with protection agencies.

• Strengthen the ability of the Afghan authorities to respond to displacement within, to and from Afghanistan.

Fair protection processes

• Improve the access of asylum-seekers to fair and efficient RSD procedures and facilitate durable solutions.

Basic needs and services

• Ensure the operation has the flexibility, capability and resources to address sudden and unexpected inflows of refugee returnees with specific needs.

• Support refugee returnee and IDP returnee reintegration to better sustain return through an integrated community-based approach that includes shelter, water and livelihoods activities.

• Maintain an emergency response capacity to address the basic needs of newly displaced people, and support solutions for IDPs in protracted situations by providing community-based reintegration support.

Durable solutions

• Facilitate the voluntary return of Afghans from Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran and other host countries, and support their initial reintegration.

• Address the longer-term reintegration needs of refugee and IDP returnees in the framework of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) through advocacy and enhanced cooperation with government ministries and donors.

• Strengthen the Government's capacity to manage and assist reintegration processes.

External relations

• Strengthen partnerships to mobilize support for people of concern.

Key targets for 2010

• Standard two-room shelters are provided to 18,800 vulnerable homeless refugee returnees and 1,620 IDP returnees; one-room emergency shelter is made available to 2,325 refugee returnees and 2,940 newly displaced IDPs.

• Water supplies are ensured for 3,800 communities receiving refugee returnees and 135 communities receiving IDP returnees.

• Transport and reintegration cash grants enable 165,000 returnees to meet their initial basic needs upon return; a transport grant is also provided to IDP returnees.

• Community-based livelihood and income-generating activities are implemented in 360 refugee returnee and IDP returnee receiving communities to support sustainable reintegration.

• Non-food items for the emergency response to new displacement cover essential needs for 100,000 families.

• Sufficient supplies critical to the shelter programme are received on time to ensure construction is completed before winter.

• Partnerships with key stakeholders contribute to wider coverage of the reintegration needs of returnees and build linkages to development activities.

• Protection monitoring for returnees and IDPs is regularly conducted to inform UNHCR action to increase security and protection from violence and exploitation.

• Returnees and IDPs with specific vulnerabilities are identified and provided with additional targeted support.

Strategy and activities

UNHCR's operation is aligned with the goals of the Refugee Returnee and IDP (RRI) sector strategy of the Government's five-year Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) to which the Office contributed signficant inputs. Finding solutions for the remaining 2.7 million registered Afghans in the Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan represents a complex challenge that humanitarian agencies alone cannot address. The refugees' long stay in exile, poverty, and difficult conditions in many parts of Afghanistan pose formidable obstacles. Increased political engagement, improved management and coordination, and more substantial investments to enhance reintegration are required from both national and international actors.

In this context, UNHCR foresees a more balanced emphasis between solutions and protection. The focus will be on influencing allocations by governments and donors for key provinces, sectors and programmes to enhance reintegration for refugee and IDP returnees. The Office will also focus on field monitoring, evaluation, and analysis of the durability of return, refugee and migratory movements, and related human rights issues.

Voluntary repatriation will remain the preferred solution for many Afghans. UNHCR's approach will anticipate different modes of return, advocacy on behalf of national programmes affecting reintegration, and institutional development to support broader government engagement. A key responsibility will be to ensure that the principle of voluntary return is respected.

The Office will emphasize the return and reintegration of protracted IDP groups, and local settlement for a considerably reduced population. UNHCR will try to persuade the Government to play a greater role in the management of IDP issues.

Constraints

Given the unpredictability of the operational environment, the Office will continue to work incrementally towards the goals established by the ANDS while improving responses to forced displacement affecting returnees and IDPs.

The voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees will continue, but at greatly reduced levels compared with the pre-2006 era. Since that time, only 15,000 Afghans have returned from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and returns from Pakistan have also declined markedly. Rising insecurity, political instability and economic and social problems in Afghanistan have constrained voluntary repatriation. The number of conflict-induced IDPs is likely to grow as a consequence of intensified military operations.

UNHCR believes that progress towards solutions of land disputes between IDPs and local populations should be possible through an integrated, area-based approach benefiting all parties. However, landless returnees may continue to live in displacement. Unreliable and insecure access to conflict-induced IDPs will continue to constrain UNHCR's operations.

Organization and implementation

The security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated steadily since 2006, impeding state-building and reconstruction and restricting UN access to just half the country. However, the areas of highest refugee and IDP return are more stable, allowing the Office and its partners greater access.

Coordination

UNHCR will continue to cooperate with the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation and other key ministries under the framework of the ANDS to support returnee reintegration. UNHCR also looks forward to the Foreign Ministry engaging on policy issues such as migration and residual refugee populations in neighbouring countries.

Within the UN system, UNHCR works with UNAMA (policy issues, human rights, protection), UNDP/UN Habitat (land allocation, community development), WFP (food aid, food-for-work), ILO (labour migration), WHO and UNICEF (health, education, emergency response) and the World Bank. As cluster lead for the protection and emergency shelter clusters, UNHCR cooperates with a range of international and NGO partners.

Financial information

The 2010-2011 budget reflects major increases in shelter, water and income-generation activities compared to prior years. This will enhance UNHCR's reintegration support for refugee returnees in particular, as well as support solutions for IDPs. The major increases are in operations, with relatively stable staffing and administrative costs compared to 2009. As a consequence 79 per cent of the total 2010-2011 budget is allocated to operations, 6 per cent to administration and 15 per cent to staff costs.

Under the new budget structure for the Afghanistan operation, the initial needs of returning refugees, for example the cash grant, will be covered under the refugee pillar. The reintegration needs of returnees, such as the planned shelter, water and livelihood interventions, are included under the reintegration pillar, while all activities for IDPs, including emergency response, are included in the fourth pillar.

Source: UNHCR Global Appeal 2010-2011