Consolidating access severity scores across Afghanistan's humanitarian operational context conducted in consultation with humanitarian partner groups - UN Agencies, International NGOs, and National NGOs - reveals the following distribution:
* High access severity was observed in 10 districts, accounting for 2.4% of all districts
* Moderate access severity was noted in 188 districts, representing 46.8 %of all districts
* Low access severity was recorded in 203 districts, making up 50.6% of all districts
Among the identified constraints faced by humanitarian partners, 'interferences by the de facto authorities 'emerged as the most common, followed by the physical environment and 'restrictions of movement of agencies, personnel, or goods'.
Methodology
OCHA Afghanistan completed its fifth bi-annual Access Severity Exercise with the aim of providing a comprehensive overview of the access landscape across all regions of the country. The methodology employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were held with representatives from UN agencies, National NGOs (NNGOs), and International NGOs (INGOs) operating across all eight regions. These discussions were complemented by incident data from the Access Monitoring and Reporting Framework¹ (AMRF) and access incident reports from humanitarian partners. This integration of qualitative insights and evidence-based data allowed for a comprehensive analysis, fostering a shared understanding of the access environment within Afghanistan's humanitarian community. Beyond analyzing access trends, it also plays a vital role in informing engagements and guiding evidence-based advocacy efforts to prioritize responses and allocate funding effectively. The findings by the three organization types for all the regions at the district level are applied to a three-point severity scale of low, moderate, and high access constraints, followed by an average final scoring for each district based on the impact on programs.
The Afghanistan Access Severity product serves as a foundational tool to comprehensively assess access conditions in the country, facilitating targeted resource allocation and solutions for humanitarian operations. It analyzes access trends to inform negotiations and solutions to the humanitarian leadership by identifying specific access constraints at the district level and informing response strategies. It empowers communities and partners with information on humanitarian access, enabling them to raise issues and recommend solutions systematically. Moreover, it supports evidence-based advocacy and guides the prioritization of responses and funding allocations, contributing to humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan.
The data collection process involved approximately 45 focus group discussions covering all 401 districts. These discussions took place from August to September 2024, capturing information from January to June 2024. Additionally, a series of 95 FGD sessions with community members were conducted to add depth and nuance to the findings.