UNITED NATIONS: Warning that Afghanistan faces deepening poverty with 6 million people at risk of famine, the UN humanitarian chief on Monday urged donors to restore funding for economic development and immediately provide $770 million to help Afghans get through the winter as the United States argued with Russia and China over who should pay.
\nMartin Griffiths told the UN Security Council that Afghanistan faces multiple crises \u2014 humanitarian, economic, climate, hunger and financial.
\nConflict, poverty, climate shocks and food insecurity \u201chave long been a sad reality\u201d in Afghanistan, but he said what makes the current situation \u201cso critical\u201d is the halt to large-scale development aid since the Taliban takeover a year ago.<\/p>\n
More than half the Afghan population \u2014 some 24 million people \u2014 need assistance and close to 19 million are facing acute levels of food insecurity, Griffiths said. And \u201cwe worry\u201d that the figures will soon become worse because winter weather will send already high fuel and food prices skyrocketing.
\nDespite the challenges, he said UN agencies and their NGO partners have mounted \u201can unprecedented response\u201d over the past year, reaching almost 23 million people.
\nBut he said $614 million is urgently required to prepare for winter including repairing and upgrading shelters and providing warm clothes and blankets \u2014 and an additional $154 million is needed to preposition food and other supplies before the weather cuts access to certain areas.
\nGriffiths stressed, however, that \u201chumanitarian aid will never be able to replace the provision of system-wide services to 40 million people across the country.\u201d
\nThe Taliban \u201chave no budget to invest in their own future,\u201d he said, and \u201cit\u2019s clear that some development support needs to be started.\u201d
\nWith more than 70 percent of Afghan\u2019s living in rural areas, Griffiths warned that if agriculture and livestock production aren\u2019t protected \u201cmillions of lives and livelihoods will be risked, and the country\u2019s capacity to produce food imperiled.\u201d
\nHe said the country\u2019s banking and liquidity crisis, and the extreme difficulty of international financial transactions must also be tackled.
\n\u201cThe consequences of inaction on both the humanitarian and development fronts will be catastrophic and difficult to reverse,\u201d Griffiths warned.
\nRussia called the UN Security Council meeting on the eve of the first anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and its ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, sharply criticized the \u201cignominious 20-year campaign\u201d by the United States and its NATO allies.
\nHe claimed they did nothing to build up the Afghan economy and their presence only strengthened the country\u2019s status \u201cas a hotbed of terrorism\u201d and narcotics production and distribution.
\nNebenzia also accused the US and its allies of abandoning Afghans to face \u201cruin, poverty, terrorism, hunger and other challenges.\u201d
\n\u201cInstead of acknowledging their own mistakes and supporting the reconstruction of the destroyed country,\u201d he said, they blocked Afghan financial resources and disconnected its central bank from SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.
\nChina\u2019s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun also accused the US and its allies of \u201cevading responsibility and abandoning the Afghan people\u201d by cutting off development aid, freezing Afghan assets and imposing \u201cpolitical isolation and blockade.\u201d
\nUS Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield accused the Taliban of imposing policies that \u201crepress and starve the Afghan people instead of protecting them\u201d and of increasing taxes on critically needed assistance.
\nShe asked how the Taliban \u2014 which has not be recognized by a single country \u2014 expect to build a relationship with the rest of the world when it provided a safe haven for the leader of Al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, in downtown Kabul. He was killed by a US drone strike on July 31.
\nNonetheless, Thomas-Greenfield said, the United States is the world\u2019s leading donor in Afghanistan, providing more than $775 million in humanitarian aid to Afghans in the country and the region in the last year.
\nAs for Afghan frozen assets, President Joe Biden announced in February that the $7 billion in the US was being divided \u2014 $3.5 billion for a UN trust fund to provide aid to Afghans and $3.5 billion for families of American victims of the 9\/11 terror attacks in the United States.
\n\u201cNo country that is serious about containing terrorism in Afghanistan would advocate to give the Taliban instantaneous, unconditional access to billions in assets that belong to the Afghan people,\u201d Thomas-Greenfield said.
\nTo Russia\u2019s claims that Afghanistan\u2019s problems are the fault of the West and not the Taliban, Thomas-Greenfield asked, \u201cWhat are you doing to help other than rehash the past and criticize others?\u201d
\nShe said Russia has contributed only $2 million to the UN humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan and China\u2019s contributions \u201chave been similarly underwhelming.\u201d
\n\u201cIf you want to talk about how Afghanistan needs help, that\u2019s fine. But we humbly suggest you put your money where your mouth is,\u201d Thomas-Greenfield said.
\nRussia\u2019s Nebenzia took the floor again, calling the suggestion \u201cstunning.\u201d
\n\u201cWe are being asked to pay for the reconstruction of a country whose economy was essentially destroyed by 20 years of US and NATO occupation?\u201d he asked. \u201cYou are the ones who need to pay for your mistakes. But first of all, you need to return to the Afghan people the money that has been stolen from them.\u201d
\nThomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador, had the last word.
\n\u201cIf the Russian Federation believes that there was an economy in Afghanistan to be destroyed, it\u2019s been destroyed by the Taliban,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS: Warning that Afghanistan faces deepening poverty with 6 million people at risk of famine, the UN humanitarian chief on Monday urged donors to restore funding for economic development and immediately provide $770 million to help Afghans get through the winter as the United States argued with Russia and China over who should pay. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2114,10402,3552,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-280670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","9":"tag-crises-grow","10":"tag-famine","11":"tag-united-nations"},"yoast_head":"\n