After weeks of dispiriting debates over whether to suspend or downgrade humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, the United Nations on Thursday launched a $4.6 billion appeal to assist more than 23 million of the most vulnerable Afghans this year.
The humanitarian appeal was developed last year for release in early January, but a December 24 announcement by de facto Taliban authorities banning Afghan women from aid work led to a partial operational pause by the U.N.-led aid community. Several international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) completely suspended operations in protest.
While it’s unclear if or when the Taliban will lift the gender-based ban on aid work, the U.N. has launched the funding appeal, saying humanitarian programs will be on “operational trial” for the next six months.
“The ban on female participation in humanitarian response will have devastating and long-lasting consequences for all people in need, but especially women and girls —already the most vulnerable members of society,” the appeal says.
Because of the “deeply gendered” nature of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the U.N. says more than 11 million Afghan women and girls will be assisted with critical food, health and shelter assistance and educational services if funding needs outlined in the appeal are met.
Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban have enforced a series of gender-based edicts that human rights groups describe as a campaign to erase women from the public sphere.
“Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the most repressive country in the world regarding women’s rights,” the U.N. Special Representative for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, told the Security Council on Wednesday.
Reduction in aid
Blacklisted, under sanctions and isolated from the rest of the world, Taliban leaders appear to be pushing foreign donors away with their misogynistic policies.
Donors have already ceased supplying Afghanistan with development aid, which accounted for about 75% of the country’s public expenditures under the U.S.-backed government.
“Funding for Afghanistan is likely to drop if women [are] not allowed to work,” warned Otunbayeva.
U.S. officials have echoed similar concerns while warning of consequences for the Taliban.
“We also see needs elsewhere in the world,” Thomas West, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan, told TOLOnews this week, explaining that emergencies in Ukraine, Syria and Turkey have created extraordinary needs.
“And, frankly, for fiscal-related reasons, we have fewer humanitarian dollars to go around and for all of these reasons, I am worried that there will be a lower contribution in the year ahead.”
Donor disengagement will be catastrophic for millions of needy Afghans, aid agencies warn.
“Afghan people are paying a high price in between de facto authorities who impose restrictions and donors who chose to disengage from the country,” Christian Jepsen, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), told VOA.
Like several other NGOs, the NRC has not fully resumed operations in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s ban on its female employees.
“We cannot reach the most vulnerable female-led households without our female colleagues, particularly in rural and conservative areas where there are many vulnerable people,” Jepsen said.
Last year, the U.N. appealed for $4.4 billion in response to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, of which donors funded 59%.
