On 14 August 2020, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) published a Country of Origin Information (COI) report titled ‘Afghanistan: Key socio-economic indicators. Focus on Kabul City, Mazar-e Sharif and Herat City’.

During 2016, EASO initiated a pilot project to facilitate Member States’ cooperation on the development of country guidance notes on Afghanistan. In the context of this project, the need for updated information was identified on topics of relevance for the consideration of Internal Protection Alternative (IPA) in Afghanistan, with a focus on the cities of Kabul, Herat and Mazar-e Sharif. This choice of focus was also kept for the 2020 update of Country Guidance on Afghanistan.

After providing some background information on these three cities, the 2020 EASO COI report Afghanistan, Key socio-economic indicators looks into several socio-economic indicators, including poverty, food security, housing, access to employment, education and healthcare, freedom of movement. The information is provided for the country, and where available for the three cities separately. Additional attention is paid to specific vulnerable groups such as IDPs, returnees, women and children.

The report was drafted by EASO COI Sector in accordance with the EASO COI Report Methodology. It was reviewed by experts from Denmark, Danish Immigration Service and by ACCORD, the Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation.

At the end of 2019, with 2.7 million refugees, Afghanistan was the third largest country of origin of refugees in the world. Afghan continued to be the second most common citizenship of asylum applicants in the EU+ as of June 2020.

This report is part of a series of EASO COI reports on Afghanistan due to be published in 2020.