Afghanistan continues to be a complex humanitarian environment where we, in the past year, have witnessed the drastic deterioration of security in the North and West of the country, the highest number of civilian casualties since 2001, a significant increase in the number of conflict-affected internally displaced persons (IDPs), and escalating security operations which threaten the lives and safety of civilians, including aid workers. All this has occurred in the context of extremely limited access in the South and East and slow recovery from the global food price crisis and on-going natural disasters.
