U.S. Seeks to Bypass Taliban, Expand Afghanistan Aid Channels
U.S. Seeks to Bypass Taliban, Expand Afghanistan Aid Channels
(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration said it would expand ways aid groups can help ease a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where the economy has been in free fall since the withdrawal of U.S. forces following the Taliban takeover in August.
Under measures announced Wednesday, the U.S. would allow more organizations, including those that focus on providing educational support, to work in Afghanistan. That could lead to having groups pay teachers’ salaries directly, a maneuver that would inject cash into the economy while circumventing Taliban-controlled government ministries.
“We are committed to supporting the people of Afghanistan, which is why Treasury is taking these additional steps to facilitate assistance,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the economy faces grave challenges, exacerbated by the country’s long dependence on foreign aid, donor and private sector flight sparked by the Taliban’s takeover, drought, structural macroeconomic issues, and the Covid-19 pandemic.”
It’s not clear if the latest moves will do much to alleviate the crisis, with Afghanistan’s war-ravaged economy contracting quickly and aid organizations and the United Nations warning of the potential for widespread famine. The UN’s refugee agency reported in September that 665,000 people have been displaced within the country this year alone, and that at least 2.2 million refugees are living in Pakistan and Iran.
Since the Taliban took power, the economy has also been hobbled by the government’s lack of access to its accounts abroad, including more than $9 billion in central bank assets frozen by the U.S. Without hard currency reserves, the Taliban-led government is struggling to pay salaries and import basic goods.
According to the UN, more than half the country’s nearly 40 million people are facing acute hunger and a million children could die as winter sets in. It has also said as much as 97% of Afghanistan’s population could be living in poverty by mid-2022, up from about 72% in 2020.
Abdallah Al Dardari, the head of the UN Development Programme in Afghanistan, said his organization and non-governmental groups in the country require a functioning banking sector to bring in financial aid. He also warned that Afghanistan would face rampant starvation unless the international community takes urgent action to help with the financial sector.
President Joe Biden faced withering bipartisan criticism over the Taliban’s sudden triumph last summer and the tumultuous U.S. withdrawal that accompanied it. As the rushed evacuation proceeded at the Kabul airport, 13 American service members were killed, along with scores of Afghans, in a suicide bombing. Easing up on sanctions, or freeing Afghanistan’s central bank reserves, would fuel more political blowback heading into the mid-term elections next fall.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. intends to help the people of Afghanistan without aiding the Taliban. The militant group sheltered al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before and after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and has a long record of human rights abuses, including prohibiting girls from getting an education and women from working, when it ruled in the late 1990s.
“We’re very conscious of the fact that there is an incredibly difficult humanitarian situation right now, one that could get worse as winter sets in,” Blinken said, adding that the Taliban must protect human rights and ensure that terror groups don’t take hold in the country.
U.S. officials briefing reporters on the new measures Tuesday said the latest moves follow consultations with dozens of organizations and emphasized that it’s up to the Taliban to build a functioning macroeconomic framework for the country.
That is a long ways off.
At the same time, the Biden administration has repeatedly emphasized that it is the single largest aid provider to Afghanistan, even after American forces left in August, and the officials on Tuesday called on other countries to step up their efforts.
The Taliban’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, on Sunday urged major Islamic nations to push the U.S. to call off sanctions imposed on the country, saying they are exacerbating the refugee crisis and hurting its people.
Hundreds of residents in Kabul rallied on Tuesday in what appeared to be the first major anti-U.S. protest since the Taliban takeover, calling for the release of frozen funds. The protesters, all men, blamed the U.S. for choking the Afghan economy by withholding the reserves and kept chanting “let us eat!”
The administration has also faced calls from lawmakers in Congress to ease restrictions.
A group of representatives led by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, a Washington State Democrat, wrote to Biden and senior Treasury Department officials urging them to “avoid harsh economic measures that will directly harm Afghan families and children.”
That followed a letter to Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent last week by several lawmakers led by Democratic Representatives Tom Malinowski and Jason Crow and Republican Representative Peter Meijer that warned of “famine and economic collapse” and called for the payment of teacher salaries and meals in schools, among other recommendations.
“We deplore the new Taliban government’s grave human rights abuses, crackdowns on civil society and repression of women and LGBTQ people,” the lawmakers wrote. “However, pragmatic U.S. engagement with the de facto authorities is nevertheless key to averting unprecedented harm to tens of millions of women, children and innocent civilians.”
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