CEI addresses Afghanistan’s worsening food and nutrition crisis by combining emergency assistance with long-term, nutrition-sensitive solutions, targeting the most vulnerable through food aid, cash support, child malnutrition screening, and resilient livelihood strategies.
Afghanistan is facing a prolonged and worsening food and nutrition crisis. Over 12.6 million people—nearly one in four Afghans—are acutely food insecure, including 2 million in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) conditions. The crisis is driven by years of conflict, climate-related disasters, economic collapse, and major reductions in humanitarian aid. Agricultural systems remain fragile, food prices are high, and families have little income. The situation is especially severe for children, with more than 3.5 million under age five malnourished, including 1.4 million suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM). Closures of therapeutic feeding centers due to funding cuts have left thousands of children without access to life-saving treatment.
In response, the Community Empowerment Initiative (CEI) has developed a focused Food Security and Nutrition Program that delivers both emergency relief and long-term support. Our approach addresses immediate food needs while building resilience in the most vulnerable communities. Key interventions include:
- Emergency Food Assistance: CEI distributes food rations and delivers cash or voucher support to food-insecure households. Where markets are functional, cash-based assistance improves dietary diversity and stimulates local economies.
- Community-Based Nutrition Programming: CEI supports mother and child nutrition sessions, including growth monitoring, counseling, and locally adapted Positive Deviance/Hearth (PDH) models that promote affordable, nutritious feeding practices.
- Screening, Referral, and Health Linkages: Regular MUAC screening and community outreach help identify children with malnutrition. CEI refers cases to health centers or therapeutic feeding programs and supports mobile outreach where static services are unavailable.
- Nutrition-Sensitive Livelihoods: CEI promotes household food production through kitchen gardening, poultry raising, and drought-resistant crops especially for women-headed households to increase access to nutritious foods.
CEI prioritizes food-insecure districts in drought- and conflict-affected provinces, focusing on vulnerable groups such as women-headed households, children under five, pregnant and lactating women, and people with disabilities. CEI’s enables rapid scale-up in response to evolving needs.
Interventions offer lifesaving support and strengthen community resilience against future shocks. With donor backing, CEI remains committed to reducing hunger and malnutrition across Afghanistan’s most at-risk populations.
