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 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 with communities in informal settlements to create sustainable and safe settlements, improve living conditions and adequate livelihood opportunities to those most in need.
The position is located with the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific of the Regional Program Division and based in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Regional Program Division is responsible for consolidating and enhancing the linkages between UN Habitat's activities in the field with the Strategic Plan, the 2030 Agenda, and the UN-Habitat’s overall future priorities and to make sure that they are appropriate to the country context.
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 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 with communities in informal settlements to create sustainable and safe settlements, improve living conditions and adequate livelihood opportunities to those most in need.
The position is located with the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific of the Regional Program Division and based in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Regional Program Division is responsible for consolidating and enhancing the linkages between UN Habitat's activities in the field with the Strategic Plan, the 2030 Agenda, and the UN-Habitat’s overall future priorities and to make sure that they are appropriate to the country context.
About the Project
The growing number of returnees and already existing IDPs present a huge challenge to housing, land and property (HLP) rights in Afghanistan. Despite the security improving with sharp drop from 60% to 2% households reporting conflict related shocks, over 3.4 million people are need of protection with a focus on HLP rights in Afghanistan (HNRP 2025). The HNRP 2025 further indicates this is made worse with recurrent natural disasters which have replaced conflict as the primary driver of displacement since 2022. 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 volumes of return: many low-income migrants 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 or remain in their place of origin will relocate to informal settlements as sites of low-cost accommodation to access livelihoods and/or humanitarian services. Intention surveys at the border suggest that 80% of returnees plan to return to their district of origin, with the majority locating to Nangarhar, Kandahar, Kabul and Kunduz. Recent surveys of returnee informal settlement highlight access to housing and secure land as a priority for the affected population. (see 2, Specific Needs Assessment, below)
In response, UN-Habitat will implement this proposed project that aims at improving living conditions of people residing in informal settlements. The proposed 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 with strengthened and documented HLP rights in in Dasht-e-Archit informal settlement in Kunduz province.
We anticipate risks associated with security, access restriction, interference by DfA, and reputation damage. UN-Habitat will coordinate project activities with UNDSS ensuring all measures are included prior to implementation of activities. UN-Habitat will also apply HAWG HCT endorsed guidelines and JoP in engaging with line DfA ministries and will also engage with UNAMA, other clusters, ICCT, RAWG and HAWG in case of access constraints and unrealistic requests from DfA such on sensitive data and on resources support.
Reporting Relationships
The Community mobilizer will assist and program officer / team leader and project Engineer in implementation of overall program components in Kunduz province development of the work plan and implementation, coordination with program officer, CDC/GAs and reporting on a day-to-day basis to the team leader and will manage community mobilization part of Kunduz and Baghlan provinces projects in target areas. S/he will have the following duties and responsibilities
