Afghan: UN appeals for $4.4 billion humanitarian aid
UN has appealed to donors for the sum $4.4 billion in humanitarian aid for Afghanistan in 2022.
The agency is asking for the funds an “essential stop gap” to ensure the country’s future after a period of turmoil marked by the Taliban’s seizure of power and a hasty U.S. exit.
The UN Tuesday said the plea, which amounts to nearly a quarter of the country’s GDP, is the largest ever sought for a single country and is triple the figure it received in 2021 when the U.S.-backed government collapsed.
“This is a stop-gap, an absolutely essential stop-gap measure that we are putting in front of the international community today,’’ UN aid Chief, Martin Griffiths, told reporters in Geneva.
“Without this being funded, there won’t be a future, we need this to be done otherwise there will be outflow, there will be suffering” Griffiths added.
The abrupt withdrawal of foreign aid last year following the Taliban victory in August left Afghanistan’s fragile economy on the brink of collapse, with food prices rising rapidly and causing widespread hunger.
Western sanctions aimed at the Taliban also prevented the passage of basic supplies of food and medicine, although this has since subsided after exemptions were passed by the UN Security Council and Washington in December.
Griffiths, who has been meeting with Taliban officials, explained that the humanitarian plan had been “carefully calibrated” so that aid will go directly to people in need and not to authorities.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said that improved security presented an opportunity to entice millions of people displaced by the long conflict back home.
Grandi added that since the Taliban seized power, 170,000 had returned home already.
“The conflict between the Taliban and the previous government is over and that has opened
up some space of security, which I think we need to take advantage of,’’ Grandi disclosed.
He specified: “But to do that, we need those resources that are part of this appeal.’’ Reuters/NAN
