KABUL (Agencies): Achim Steiner, head of the UN Development Program (UNDP), said that the organization cannot abandon 40 million Afghans “simply on the principle of moral outrage”. “We are essentially engaged in a form of cooperation without recognition and trying to make the best possible for an increasingly desperate Afghan population,” Achim Steiner said in a series of tweets.
“The UN is unequivocal about the fundamental human rights that we expect a country like Afghanistan to uphold,” including the rights of girls to attend educational institutions. But, at the same time, international organizations are trying to help ordinary Afghans navigate “a highly informal survival economy,” he said.
Meanwhile, Eloi Fillion, ICRC’s head of delegation in Afghanistan said in a series of tweets the deepening economic crisis is driving millions of Afghans into poverty. “In Kabul, I still see more people selling their household items in order to earn money and put food on the table,” Fillion tweeted. He said: “We can’t contain such a crisis without the full mobilization of the international community.”
Meanwhile, the United Nations (UN) has called for $3 billion in cash aid to Afghanistan and said the gap needs to be filled by next winter.
The organization made the largest request for assistance to Afghanistan in early 2022, saying it needed a total of $5 billion to address the needs of Afghans. Of this, $600 million was requested to address needy Afghans in neighboring countries and $4.4 billion for citizens inside Afghanistan.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says it has so far raised only $1.4 billion and there is a huge gap. According to the agency, most of the aid came from the United States, the Asian Development Bank and the European Commission. According to the report, access to food is a top priority for Afghanistan.
Heather Barr, an associate director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, told RFE/RL that the lack of interaction between the Islamic Emirate and the world has worsened Afghanistan’s economic situation. “Humanitarian aid is very important, but a country cannot rely on it alone.
There is still a very long delay. No agreement has been reached between the Taliban (Islamic Emirate) and Western donors, especially the United States, to reactivate Afghanistan’s economy,” Barr said. The United Nations estimates that 19.8 million people in Afghanistan are in urgent need of food aid. Among them, 1.1 million young children in Afghanistan are at risk of death.
