The United Nations’s aid coordination office, backed by the United Kingdom, Germany, and Qatar, is launching its largest-ever appeal for funds for a single country in the hopes of raising $4.4 billion to help Afghanistan, a decidedly ambitious call to help the impoverished country once again run by Taliban militants at a time when much of the world’s attention is focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Ukraine is critical, but Afghanistan, you know, speaks to our souls for devotion and allegiance,” Martin Griffiths, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said ahead of the pledge campaign on Thursday. “To put it plainly, the humanitarian initiative for which we are pleading is to save lives.”
“Afghanistan is unraveling under a crippling humanitarian catastrophe and a free-falling economy less than a year after Taliban rebels deposed its internationally recognized government. According to the United Nations, “about 23 million people endure acute food insecurity.”
United Nations said the economy of the Taliban is too feeble
Mr. Griffiths (Head of United Nations) told reporters on Wednesday that the economy is “too feeble to maintain the lives of common people, women, men, and children.” “In light of these dire circumstances, we are requesting that donors support the largest humanitarian appeal ever undertaken for a single country: $4.4 billion to assist the people of Afghanistan in their hour of greatest need this year.”
The proposal is three times what the organization requested for Afghanistan a year ago, a request that was exceeded once donors realized the scale of the needs that would need to be handled once the Taliban took power. “I have no doubt that we will not meet the $4.4 billion commitment objective tomorrow,” the Head of United Nations said, “but we will work on it.”
Taliban hardliners have issued restrictive edicts almost daily since a leadership conference in the southern city of Kandahar in early March, harkening back to their brutal rule in the late 1990s, further alienating a wary international community and aggravating many Afghans.
Women are prohibited from flying alone, women are prohibited from entering parks on certain days, and male workers are required to wear a beard and the customary turban. Foreign TV shows have been pulled off the air, and international media broadcasts such as the BBC’s Persian and Pashto services have been outlawed.
The international community, as well as many Afghans, were surprised by a last-minute prohibition on girls returning to school beyond sixth grade. On March 23, the first day of the new Afghan school year, females returned to classrooms across the country only to be sent home.
Mr. Griffiths stated, “Constraining rights based on gender is counter to the ideals that we all hold dear, and it also puts a brake on the development and eventual prosperity of this great country that we are here to assist and serve.” “We want to see those restrictions and limitations lifted.” “I hope this does not imply that the pledges we have received from this conference are restricted,” he said.
Many donor countries are attempting to assist distressed Afghans while mostly avoiding the Taliban, terrified of the group’s brutal rule returning — but the aid agency said that political and economic participation from abroad should return as well. “It’s critical for the international community to engage with the Taliban on subjects other than humanitarian concerns,” Mr. Griffiths said. “Humanitarian aid is not a substitute for other sorts of engagement.”