The Taliban takeover in August 2021 plunged millions into poverty and hunger after foreign aid was cut off.
Cuts in financial aid in Afghanistan pose the biggest threat to aid to the country’s women, warned the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, an independent humanitarian organization that helps people forced to flee.
Jan Egeland, its Secretary-General, said women and girls were bearing the brunt of declining financial support for non-governmental groups and humanitarian aid in Afghanistan.
The NRC helped 772,484 Afghans in 2022, but by 2023 that number had fallen to 491,435. Last year, the humanitarian agency helped 216,501 people and half of its beneficiaries are women.
“Over the past two years, peer organizations have cut programs and staff one after another. The biggest threat to programs helping Afghan women is reduced funding. The biggest threat to the future well-being of Afghan women is education”said Mr. Egeland.
The Taliban takeover in August 2021 plunged millions into poverty and hunger after foreign aid was cut off almost overnight.
Sanctions against the country’s new leaders, a halt to bank transfers and the freezing of billions of dollars in Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves have cut off access to global institutions and the outside money that supported the economy dependent on aid before the withdrawal of US and NATO forces.
The United Nations and other bodies have urged the international community to continue supporting Afghanistan. Organizations such as the Norwegian Refugee Council have helped keep public services afloat through education and health care programs, including nutrition and immunizations.
But women and girls face more obstacles accessing care and education due to restrictions imposed by the Taliban and a persistent shortage of health professionals.
Ms Egeland said Afghan women and girls had not forgotten that world leaders had told them that their “priority number one” was education and human rights.
“Today we cannot even fund livelihood programs for widows and single mothers” he told The Associated Press by telephone from the western province of Herat. The international community provided humanitarian aid in many countries where it disagreed with local policies.
But opposition to Taliban policies, combined with a “general shortage” of aid funds in many countries, worsens the deficit in Afghanistan, he added.
Egeland said most of the discussions he had with Taliban officials during his trip focused on the need to resume classes for women and girls. “They still say that it will happen, but that the conditions are not met”he declared. “They say they have to agree on the conditions.”
