Droughts and Welfare in Afghanistan

This paper studies the effect of the 2018 drought on household consumption and poverty inAfghanistan, a semi-arid and conflict-affected country. The paper combines geolocated household data with remote-sensingweather data on precipitation, vegetation, and temperature. The findings show that drought-like conditions decreasedmonthly per capita consumption expenditures and hence increased poverty, with a highly nonlinear relationshipbetween consumption and weather shocks. When forced to cut back, households reduced nonfood consumption to maintaintheir food consumption; only under severe stress did they reduce food consumption. Households that owned agriculturalland were more resilient to the 2018 drought. Based on the historical distribution of weather shocks, estimates ofvulnerability to poverty suggest that 62.5 percent of people have a one in four probability of falling into poverty dueto weather shocks. Given that climate change will exacerbate the frequency and severity of future droughts, thesefindings highlight the importance of investments in resilience and shock-responsive social protection tosupplement urgent humanitarian assistance.