Switzerland in Afghanistan

Cooperation between Afghanistan and Switzerland did not just start in 2002 after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. In the early seventies, the SDC already sent specialists to northern Afghanistan to teach farmers how to produce cheese. At the same time, other Swiss specialists were involved in water projects. After the invasion by Soviet troops in 1979, however, the SDC withdrew from Afghanistan and resumed its work in the early 1990s from its base in Pakistan.

During the eighties and nineties, Switzerland provided humanitarian assistance to mainly internally displaced persons and Afghans refugees through multilateral channels such as UNHCR, WFP and ICRC in the country as well as in Pakistan and Iran. Starting in 1997, Switzerland actively participated in the Afghanistan Support Group (ASG), a donor aid coordination mechanism that existed until 2001.

In 2002, the Government of Switzerland established the Cooperation Office in Kabul to support the stabilisation and reconstruction of the war-torn country. After the Taliban takeover on 15 August 2021, Switzerland immediately closed its cooperation office in Kabul and evacuated all staff. Initially, the SDC team responsible for Afghanistan continued its programmes from Bern. Since February 2023, it has been operating from the Pakistani capital Islamabad and conducting regular visits to Kabul in order to continue the SDC’s programmes for Afghanistan. The SDC is once again represented in Afghanistan. In March 2025, a team of experts from the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit (SHA) has opened a Swiss humanitarian office in Kabul.

Swiss Cooperation Programme  Afghanistan 2023-2025

The Swiss Cooperation Programme 2023-2025 builds upon previous experiences, expand existing partner networks and leverage Swiss comparative advantages as an impartial, nonpartisan and most credible partner enjoying a high degree of credibility and a sound reputation in Afghanistan and within the international community. Staying engaged in the Afghan fragile context poses a multitude of challenges and learning opportunities for SDC to adapt its programming and modes of delivery. Switzerland continues to support the thematic lines that were in place already before the Taliban takeover, while adapting the modes of delivery to the new realities. The programme focuses on three thematic areas: 1) human rights and protection, 2) basic needs and services (including food security), and 3) climate-resilient local livelihoods. The programme adopts a nexus approach where interventions of humanitarian aid, strengthening of self-reliance and resilience and peacebuilding on community level reinforce one another. 

The programme has been designed in line with Switzerland’s International Cooperation Strategy 2025-2028 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The key focus areas of this programme are:

Protection and Human Rights

Switzerland builds on its previous work on protection and rule of law, strengthening further the focus on human rights. The main objective is to address the dire human rights needs of women and girls as well as vulnerable groups, and to support the provision of legal protection services within the limits of the sharia justice system (including legal aid, para-legal aid and counselling), with the aim to claim and defend human rights, support access to victim-centred justice and human rights in the absence of such guarantees by the duty bearer, especially for vulnerable and underprivileged groups. 

Basic services including health and basic education

Switzerland builds on its previous partnerships with Afghan and international NGOs, UN agencies and ICRC to strengthen Swiss focus on delivery of humanitarian assistance and basic services. The main task is to address the humanitarian crisis and the impact of the collapse of the Afghan economy. It aims to substitute the Afghan state that fails to provide basic public services to the population for survival. On the one hand, Switzerland supports the provision of goods that address the basic material needs of the population. On the other hand, Switzerland supports the provision of basic public services, especially (but not limited to) social services such as education and health care that the state is no longer able or willing to provide.

Climate-resilient local livelihoods

Switzerland builds on its previous portfolio in the field of natural resources management, strengthening its focus on climate change and its impacts on food security and community resilience. The main task is to address the rapidly growing impact of climate change on the population, especially in rural areas. It supports communities to manage natural resources in a sustainable, climate-resilient way, in particular land and water, and to increase their food security by adapting their means of production to the changed and changing climatic conditions. As the rural income is mostly generated through agriculture, this means imparting cultivation knowledge based on circular economies (e.g. agroecology) and adapting agricultural infrastructure and practice; but it also means enabling the population to diversify its sources of income in order to reduce the pressure on natural resources and to increase its resilience. Where possible, this goes hand-in-hand with market system development programming in order to better link producers to consumers and vice versa. In addition, Switzerland sees its contribution in the support to local disaster risk reduction, putting in place preparedness schemes that help prevent climate-induced disasters or mitigate their impact – for instance, flood-resistant small infrastructure and drought-resistant cultivation methods.

In addition to its activities in Afghanistan, Switzerland is making a substantial regional contribution within the framework of the Solutions Strategy for Afghan Refugees (SSAR). It is a core member of this UN initiative, which supports Afghanistan’s neighbours Iran and Pakistan in dealing with the refugee crisis. Through its projects, Switzerland responds to the acute humanitarian needs of the population, with a focus on building resilience, strengthening livelihoods and combating the negative impacts of climate change in the medium to long term. It ensures proximity to civil society and the population through its partner organisations, which implement the projects on the ground.

Approach and partners

2025 Switzerland has allocated CHF 25 million to help alleviate the extensive humanitarian needs of the Afghan people, and to strengthen livelihoods to the greatest extent possible. Switzerland coordinates its work in Afghanistan at various levels within the international community. It works with an array of strategic partners, ranging from multilateral and international organisations (UN, World Bank, ICRC) to international and local NGOs. Switzerland continues to strengthen local capacities through cooperation with local partners, institutions and communities. In doing so, it will ensure a balanced mix of partners from international governmental and non-governmental organisations in order to promote the localisation of aid. Financial resources are allocated as follows: 47% to the UN, ICRC and international financial institutions, and 53% to international NGOs (such as the Agha Khan Foundation) and Afghan NGOs.