Fifty-seven percent of Afghans struggled to afford food last year, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday.
Gallup said that the percentage of Afghans struggling to afford food crossed the majority threshold for the first time in 2018 over the past decade.
“With nearly two-thirds of the country’s provinces suffering from major droughts, food insecurity has soared,” Gallup said.
It said that inability to afford food was particularly acute in the provinces of Balkh, Faryab, Jowzjan, Kunduz, Takhar, Helmand, Uruzgan and Nimroz, where two in three residents report having had difficulty affording food.
The poll also showed that half of Afghans say there have been times in the past year when they have struggled to afford adequate shelter.
According to the poll, 90 percent of Afghans are finding it difficult or very difficult to get by one their household income, the highest on record for Afghanistan and highest in the world last year.
