Health
Save the Children warns of rising child malnutrition amid funding cut crisis
The organisation, which has worked in Afghanistan since 1976, currently operates programmes in nine provinces and works with partners in another 11.
Nearly one in 10 Afghan children under five is suffering from acute malnutrition as funding cuts force the closure or suspension of hundreds of health facilities, Save the Children said in a statement this week.
The organisation said wasting worsened in two-thirds of Afghanistan’s provinces in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the same period last year. Acute malnutrition among children under five has risen by 14% over four years, affecting an estimated 3.7 million children this year.
At the same time, humanitarian funding has fallen by almost 70%, from $3.27 billion in 2022 to $1 billion in 2025. Only $438 million has been secured so far in 2026, leaving a 74% funding gap.
Save the Children said nearly 600 health facilities have closed or suspended services because of funding cuts, affecting around four million people, half of them children.
About 700,000 people, including 140,000 children under five, have lost access to primary healthcare since Save the Children-supported facilities and mobile teams were closed or scaled back because of funding shortages since early 2025.
In a remote mountainous area of northern Afghanistan, the organisation runs the only healthcare facility serving around 10,000 people. The clinic sees more than 100 patients a day, with some walking two to three hours for treatment.
Save the Children said residents who cannot afford the roughly $60 journey to the nearest city hospital would face a seven-hour walk if the clinic closes.
The organisation has kept 14 clinics operating through short-term funding but warned that their future remains uncertain.
Ashish Damle, Save the Children’s country director in Afghanistan, said worsening hunger, mass returns from Iran and Pakistan, displacement, disasters, conflict and prolonged drought were placing humanitarian resources under severe pressure.
“The world cannot look away,” Damle said, warning that poverty, water shortages, illness and declining household incomes were also increasing child labour and disrupting education.
Save the Children said Afghanistan’s population has grown by up to 12% since September 2023, while more than six million Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan amid tighter policies affecting Afghan nationals.
The organisation, which has worked in Afghanistan since 1976, currently operates programmes in nine provinces and works with partners in another 11.
Last year, it reached more than two million people, including nearly 5,000 children treated for severe acute malnutrition and 1.4 million people who received outpatient consultations.