Afghanistan’s Humanitarian Crisis
Human Rights Watch recently stated that international donations to Afghanistan should take immediate action to ensure that critical aid reaches Afghans facing famine and collapsing health systems following the Taliban takeover on August 15, 2021. They must also devise a concerted plan of action to address education, banking, and other serious matters that require collaboration.
Due to security concerns, staff evacuations, closures, and legal ambiguities, most of the previous Afghan government is no longer functional, and humanitarian relief and other assistance supplied by UN agencies and civilian organizations have been severely hampered. UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a warning on August 31: “A humanitarian disaster is approaching.”
Human Rights Watch’s associate Asia director, Patricia Gossman. “To avoid exacerbating an already terrible situation, donors should agree to support international agencies and nongovernmental organizations that can give emergency food, health, and education aid, as well as develop a plan to address assistance directly with the Taliban.”
Afghanistan is in the midst of a massive economic downturn. Food and other basic prices have soared, despite the fact that most banks are still closed, and the UN has warned of cash shortages and possible food shortages. Moreover, 30% of the country was enduring extreme food insecurity before the Taliban’s takeover; now it’s over 40%.
In December 2020, UNICEF reported that 3.1 million of Afghanistan’s nearly seven million children under the age of five were severely malnourished, implying that “a startling 1 in 2 children under the age of five is in need of acute malnutrition treatment services to save their lives.”
Most international aid to Afghanistan’s government agencies and institutions was discontinued immediately before and after the Taliban took control. The Taliban have cut Afghanistan’s Central Bank off from the international financial system and access to the country’s foreign currency reserves.
The International Monetary Fund has also denied Afghanistan credit and assets, purportedly at the behest of the United States, including around US$440 million in Special Drawing Rights the bank has set up in response to the Covid-19 outbreak. The Central Bank of Afghanistan is unable to receive fresh paper Afghan currency produced in Europe due to previous UN Security Council resolutions putting sanctions and other restrictions on the Taliban for terrorism-related conduct.
The complex set of sanctions imposed on the Taliban by the United Nations Security Council, as well as sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, and many other governments, should be reviewed to ensure that they do not obstruct the delivery of humanitarian aid by non-governmental organizations.
The school system, which now enrolls nearly seven million students, 38 percent of whom are girls, will urgently require additional foreign finance. Nongovernmental organizations have played an important role in education, but they only educate a few hundred thousand pupils outside of the state system. Donor states should encourage the Taliban to open all schools and let girls and women to attend at all levels without fear of being intimidated or threatened.
Nongovernmental organizations’ main function in the health sector has been to deliver services on behalf of the government. They cannot replace the state system, which has relied on international funding delivered to the government through a World Bank-managed trust fund before being distributed to provincial groups. The Taliban should keep the system in place and pledge not to discriminate in the provision of services.