Poverty in Afghanistan continues to deepen, with three in four Afghans – around 28 million people – unable to meet their most basic needs in 2025, as modest economic growth fails to keep pace with rapid population growth, declining international aid, worsening climate shocks, and ongoing restrictions on women’s rights, according to a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The return of 2.9 million Afghans in 2025 alone is further straining already overstretched services and livelihoods.

This edition of UNDP’s Afghanistan Socioeconomic Review finds that while the share of Afghans living in subsistence insecurity remained unchanged, it is a story of returnees with an estimated 1.4 million additional people affected as more people returned to the country in 2025. Millions of families are facing growing hardships, lacking access to basic needs such as water, food, healthcare, housing, heating, and clothing. More than 80 percent of households are in debt, and nearly three quarters rely on negative coping strategies to manage getting through the day.