Established in Afghanistan since 1993, Acted currently operates across 20 provinces; reaching over 6.6 million beneficiaries in 2023 through 31 projects delivering humanitarian assistance and basic services. Acted has built a legacy of long-term access and community acceptance in some of Afghanistan’s most peripheral and hard-to-reach areas; ensuring strong community-driven program. Acted’s work is guided by 3 pillars : improving access to basic services, providing livelihoods and economic opportunities, and promoting effective nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation; while utilising an area-based approach to provide an integrated, multisectoral emergency response.
Afghanistan faces a complex humanitarian and development crisis driven by years of conflict, political instability, economic instability, and natural disasters. Over two-thirds of the population lives in poverty, with 23.7 million in need of emergency assistance; including 15.8 million people facing acute food security. Afghanistan is also highly vulnerable to climate change, with increasingly frequent droughts, floods, and erratic weather patterns devastating agricultural production and water resources. Environmental degradation, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity compound these challenges, particularly in rural areas where 80% of livelihoods depend on natural resources. Building on three decades of community-driven development and emergency interventions, Acted has been supporting vulnerable populations and local territories affected by conflict, environmental disasters and economic and social crises to meet immediate needs and lead longer-term sustainable development.
Acted in Afghanistan
Acted’s mission in Afghanistan is to save lives and support people in hard-to-reach areas, moving beyond immediate relief to long-term recovery and basic services. Guided by the principle “Think Local – Act Global,” Acted places a strong emphasis on deeply understanding local contexts to design and implement programs that leverage the knowledge, capacities, and structures of the communities it serves. This local approach drives a global vision of a “3Zero world”—a world free from exclusion, poverty, and carbon emissions. For over 30 years, Acted has strengthened its engagement with communities and local actors to deliver effective, area-based interventions. These programs aim to improve access to basic services, expand inclusive economic opportunities —particularly for youth—and enhance communities’ ability to adapt to climate change. Complementing this long-term strategy is Acted’s adaptive and rapid humanitarian responses, which can be deployed within days of a shock, providing cash and in-kind assistance to individuals affected by disasters and poverty in the most difficult areas of the country, at all times for all vulnerable groups.
In Afghanistan, Acted advances its 3ZERO objective through Acted’s global flagship programmes:
- Through Acted’s AGORA initiative, Acted promotes community-driven participatory planning by empowering local communities to identify and implement their own priorities in accessing basic services across rural and urban communities in more than 24 districts. AGORA has been delivered in Afghanistan since 2018, supporting 2,842,715 individuals.
- Acted in Afghanistan is piloting the Towards Holistic Resilience in Vulnerable Environments (THRIVE) approach, to restore agropastoral ecosystems, improve food security and alleviate poverty while promoting peacebuilding and enhance climate change resilience. Through this pilot programme, Acted has already regenerated 34 hectares of land, and increased the capacity of 30,802 people to deal with climate change since 2023.
- To localize aid, Acted also enhances local organizations capacities to fulfil their mandate over the long term through tailored training sessions identified via its flagship Grassroots Organization Capacity Assessment (GOCA).
- Using a multi-sectoral approach to support communities affected by protracted displacement and integrating the humanitarian response into local planning frameworks; Acted in Afghanistan is using Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) and Durable Solutions programming to provide pathways for local integration of over 16,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) living in informal settlements (ISETs).
