Organizational setting:
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-Habitat, is the agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities. The UN-Habitat Afghanistan country office is part of the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP). The position is located in Kunduz and Baghlan (NE region) l provinces, Afghanistan.
Learning from the experience in the last 30 years and recognizing the realities of the current context in the country, UN-Habitat in Afghanistan designs and implements projects in settlements of all sizes, putting the needs of people first, targeting the most vulnerable and meeting local needs by focusing on area-based and community-driven outputs. The portfolio currently covers projects ranging from humanitarian responses to supporting recovery and meeting basic human needs. UN-Habitat collaborates closely with the UN country team as well as with technical and financial partners in Afghanistan, in alignment with the UN Strategic Framework for Afghanistan (UNSFA) and the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plans (HNRP).
Afghanistan is experiencing a continuous humanitarian crisis, with over half a million people in the need of humanitarian assistance. Many people are displaced due to climate change, internal displacement or massive returns from neighbouring countries, and many have sought refuge in the relative safety of cities, which are growing rapidly. The number of people living in unplanned, underserviced and informal settlements, including in risk prone areas, is increasing and living conditions as well as access to services is inadequate. The unfolding crisis in Afghan cities, which is accelerated by climate change impacts and natural disasters, is occurring in a context of underlying vulnerabilities, including infrastructure deficits, insecure livelihoods and pervasive tenure insecurity. Most at risk are displaced people in informal settlements, with women, disabled and ethnic minorities being particularly vulnerable.
UN-Habitat applies a participatory and community-driven approach, using participatory spatial planning and action planning processes to enable communities to identify and implement priority service and infrastructure investments to support their socioeconomic recovery processes and creating an enabling environment for durable solutions. UN-Habitat's community-cantered “People's Process” is a proven and effective approach to reduce vulnerability at scale in the Afghan context. UN-Habitat builds upon its long tradition of partnering with communities in informal settlements to create sustainable and safe settlements, improve living conditions and adequate livelihood opportunities to those most in need.
About the Project
The growing number of returnees and the high number of IDPs in protracted situations present a huge challenge regarding housing, land and property (HLP) rights in Afghanistan. Despite the security improving - with a sharp drop from 60% to 2% households reporting conflict-related shocks - , over 3.4
million people are need of protection regarding HLP rights in Afghanistan (HNRP 2025). The HNRP 2025 further indicates that recurrent natural disasters, which have replaced conflict as the primary driver of displacement since 2022, is aggravating HLP related challenges. Risks of ethnic and religious violence, repression, discrimination, marginalization, forced displacement remains high, driven by cross-border returns, deportations to Afghanistan, and rising threats of evictions have exacerbated situation.
In areas of return, informal settlements are emerging as key sites experiencing high numbers and population growth due to returns: many people with low incomes resided in informal settlements prior to moving to Pakistan in search of economic opportunities and are now returning to these communities. In addition, it is likely that returnees unable to return in their place of origin (or having no formal ties to those) will relocate to informal settlements as sites of low-cost accommodation to access livelihood opportunities and/or services. Intention surveys at the border suggest that 80% of returnees plan to return to their districts of origin, with the majority locating to Nangarhar, Kandahar, Kabul and Kunduz. Recent surveys in returnee informal settlements highlight that access to housing and secure land (HLP rights) as a priority for the affected population. (see 2, Specific Needs Assessment, below)
In response, UN-Habitat will implement a project that aims at improving living conditions of people residing in informal settlements. The project does this by deploying a people- centered approach that addresses the needs of residents of informal settlements in areas of high return by documenting communal and household HLP rights of 6,000 households to reduce eviction risks and provide a foundation for improved living conditions. The project will benefit around 42,000 people through strengthened and documented HLP rights in Dasht-e-Archit’s informal settlements (Kunduz province).
In addition, one project that focuses on HLP rights, UN-Habitat is also starting to implement a project in a multi-agency partnership, aiming to support returnees and displacement affected communities on their pathways to durable solutions and integration. The project will cover different districts in Kunduz and Baglan provinces and include community mobilization, as well as the construction of community-driven, gender-sensitive and climate-resilient infrastructures and support dignified housing solutions for the most vulnerable. Other partners will complement UN-Habitat’s efforts by providing opportunities for improved livelihood opportunities, infrastructure and services.
Reporting Relationships
The advertised position directly reports to the national and international program managers and works in close coordination with the senior management staff. S/He will work closely with technical advisors, project engineers, social organizers, clusters and working groups at provincial level (Kunduz) and other relevant stakeholders like community groups, contractors and other similar implementing partners to implement the project (HLP and SDFA) outputs at provincial level.