Islamabad (AFP) – The United Nations food agency said on Monday it urgently needed $800 million over the next six months to help Afghanistan, which faces its biggest hunger risk in a quarter century.
After the Taliban takeover in August 2021 and the subsequent economic collapse, aid agencies have provided Afghans with food, education and medical care. However, distribution was severely hampered last December when the Taliban issued a decree banning women from working in domestic and international non-governmental organizations.
The United Nations did not participate in the ban, but said last week that the Taliban-led government had banned Afghan women from working in domestic institutions.
The World Food Program said women aid workers play a vital role in delivering the agency’s food and nutrition assistance and that it it will make “every possible effort” to keep this going, while also trying to ensure the active involvement of female staff.
“The WFP urgently needs $800 million for the next six months to continue providing assistance to people in need across Afghanistan,” the organization said. “Catastrophic hunger knocks on Afghanistan’s doors and unless humanitarian support is sustained, hundreds of thousands more Afghans will need assistance to survive.”
The U.N. said Monday that its Afghan operations remain severely under-funded, with $249 million reported to be confirmed for 2023, nearly one-third of the amount received for the same period in 2022.
It said Afghanistan is dealing with its third consecutive year of drought-like conditions, a second year of crippling economic decline, and is still suffering from decades of conflict and natural disasters.
“The total ‘immediate’ funding requirements to address critical gaps for the coming three months is $717.4 million,” according to a statement from the agency’s office for humanitarian affairs. “This is all part of the $4.38 billion funding shortfall needed for humanitarian assistance in 2023.”
Afghanistan was said to be the world’s least-funded operation despite being the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
The Taliban takeover has pushed millions of Afghans into poverty and hunger after foreign aid stopped almost overnight.Through sanctions on Taliban rulers, a freeze on bank transfers and a freeze on Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves. , limited access to international institutions and the external funding that underpinned the country’s aid-dependent economy before U.S. and NATO forces withdrew.
Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaki said Afghan assets had been illegally and unjustly frozen. He called for Afghanistan’s seat in the United Nations to be handed over to the Taliban-led government. It is still under the administration of former President Ashraf Ghani.
In a video statement shared Monday by Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Hafiz Zia Ahmad, Muttaki said the UN office in Kabul and other international organizations were open. In his remarks, he did not directly mention the ban on UN personnel in Afghanistan.
