Sudan - for the second year in a row - topped a 2025 watchlist of global humanitarian crises released by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) aid organization on Wednesday, followed by Gaza and the West Bank, Myanmar, Syria and South Sudan.

While Afghanistan is no longer in the top 10 on the Emergency Watchlist for this year, after being ranked third in 2023, the country still features in the unranked second half this year - between 11 and 20 on the list. 

According to the report, the improvement can be attributed to various factors including the economy having now settled at a low-level equilibrium and because of crises in many other countries deteriorating rapidly.

The report stated that Afghanistan’s economic crisis continues to cause some of the highest rates of humanitarian need worldwide and that growth is being held back by a number of factors. These include the country’s economic isolation, particularly the suspension of most development funding (which previously subsidized Afghanistan’s spending on public services by an estimated 75%), the lack of progress on unfreezing the Afghan central bank’s frozen funds (held in a Swiss-based trust fund), and the impact of sanctions and international restrictions on foreign financial inflows.

The New York-based IRC began the watchlist more than 15 years ago as an internal planning tool to prepare for the year ahead, but chief executive David Miliband said it now also served as a call to action globally.

The report said 305.1 million people around the world are in humanitarian need - up from 77.9 million in 2015 - and that the 20 countries on the IRC watchlist account for 82% of them. Miliband described the numbers as "crushing."

"There are more resources to do more good for more people than at any time in history. This makes it all the more bewildering that the gap between humanitarian need and humanitarian funding is also greater than ever," he wrote in the watchlist report.  

The report said the humanitarian crisis in Sudan was the largest since records began and that the country accounts for 10% of all people in humanitarian need, despite being home to just 1% of the global population.

War erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, and triggered the world's largest displacement crisis.

The remaining 15 countries on the IRC watchlist are: Lebanon, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mali, Somalia, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Niger, Nigeria, Ukraine and Yemen.

Russia moved a step closer towards recognising the Islamic Emirate government of Afghanistan (IEA) on Tuesday as its parliament voted in favour of a law that would make it possible to remove the IEA from Moscow's list of banned terrorist organisations.

Parliament's lower house, the Duma, approved the bill in the first of three required readings, Interfax news agency said.

No country currently recognises the IEA government which regained power in August 2021.

But Russia has been gradually building ties with the new government, which President Vladimir Putin said in July was now an ally in fighting terrorism.

Karen Decker, the charge d'affaires of the US Embassy for Afghanistan, on Tuesday emphasized the importance of education and said it was a fundamental human right, and a path to hope and progress for everyone.

She added that Afghan families want their sons and daughters to be educated.

Marking Human Rights Day, Decker said: “It is Afghan parents who want their sons and daughters to be educated, to work and to participate in public life. My question is, why aren’t the Taliban (Islamic Emirate) listening?”

She said: “We stand with the Afghan people and call for schools and training centers to reopen to all Afghans. Education is the precondition for health and prosperity.

"All Afghan women and men deserve good health and opportunity. They deserve to live their lives with dignity. These rights are non-negotiable today and every day,” she said.

“Together, let's advocate for equal access to education and uphold the rights of Afghan women and girls,” she stressed.