![]() ![]() ![]() "The de facto authorities pledged - in person and in a follow-up letter to Under-Secretary-General Griffiths - that they will cooperate to ensure assistance is delivered to the people of Afghanistan," Guterres said.Īsked by the press whether he would be willing to go to Kabul himself, Guterres said that "this is something to decide at the right moment, when the right conditions are met."Īccording to the UN chief, the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) has resumed flights from Islamabad to Kabul, and they were fully operational across the country. Guterres also announced that he had asked the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, to travel to Kabul last week to meet the leadership of the Taliban. "The international community must find ways to make cash available to allow the Afghan economy to breathe - a total collapse would have devastating consequences to the people and risk destabilizing neighboring countries with a massive outflow," he said. The risk comes from limitations in Afghanistan's financial system, meaning that a number of basic economic functions cannot be delivered, according to the UN chief. Employment is concentrated in low-productivity agriculture: 60 of households get some income from farming. The threat of economic collapse was discussed at a later press conference on Monday. The World Bank describes Afghanistan's private sector as narrow. The UN chief said that as of today, one in three Afghans do not know where their next meal will come from, and their basic public services are close to collapse.ĭue to a severe drought, many people could run out of food by the end of this month. "Let us be clear: This conference is not simply about what we will give to the people of Afghanistan. After decades of war, suffering and insecurity, they face perhaps their most perilous hour," he said during his opening remarks at the meeting. "The people of Afghanistan need a lifeline. He highlighted the acute and urgent need for funding support and action in the country. Guterres was here in Geneva on Monday to convene a high-level ministerial meeting on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan. 13 (Xinhua) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday that the possibility of a complete economic collapse in Afghanistan is "serious." “People are going to die here in Afghanistan very soon,” Mr Egeland said.GENEVA, Sept. The economic meltdown means the situation is likely now to get worse.Īfghan media reported that in the poor western province of Ghor, some 300 children suffering from malnutrition had been taken to the provincial hospital in the past six months. “The economic freefall in Afghanistan has been abrupt and unrelenting, adding to an already difficult situation, as the country grapples with a second severe drought in three years,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, WFP’s Afghanistan director last week.Įven before the current crisis, the country had one of the world's highest rates of stunting in children under five, with a lack of food impairing the growth of development in two-in-five children. Only 10 per cent of households headed by someone with a secondary or university education were able to buy enough food. The closure of foreign firms and international aid projects, as well as unpaid government payrolls, means the catastrophe is hitting the urban middle classes and not just the rural poor. Half of households reported they had run out of food altogether at least once in the past two weeks. Surveys by the World Food Programme, the food assistance branch of the UN, found just five per cent of families have enough to eat every day. The little income they had in the previous economy is gone. Afghanistan is now the world’s largest-ever humanitarian appeal, requiring a staggering US4. “They have no food at all for the coming weeks. As donor governments meet tomorrow for a pledging conference to support the crisis in Afghanistan, the IRC calls for bold pledges to humanitarian funding and concrete commitments to halt the economic collapse facing the country. Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said he had toured camps for the poor where residents had no food. Some three-quarters of the Afghan government budget was funded by aid before the Taliban took over and donors put their funding on hold. ![]() War and Covid had pitched the country into a humanitarian crisis long before the Taliban ousted Ashraf Ghani's government, but the end of international aid to the country has made it worse. The economic catastrophe engulfing the country means aid agencies are in a race against the oncoming winter to provide food and shelter to millions. Only one Afghan family in 20 has enough to eat as the economy continues to plummet after the Taliban takeover, the United Nations has warned. ![]()
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