As the Taliban have taken control of the country’s banking sector, private banks have collapsed and owners have left the country, fearing kidnappings or worse. Meanwhile, Afghans at home and abroad cannot access their personal bank accounts, leading to a severe cash crisis. The Taliban regard that money as a national asset and demand it be made available, but that is also illegal under the sanctions regime. The United Nations has flown in cash, but that’s expensive and unsustainable.Īfghanistan’s central bank reserves, close to $10 billion-much of it held in the United States-have also been frozen since Aug. Few commercial banks will risk doing business with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, so it is virtually impossible to send money into the country. members, or businesses in those countries to deal directly with the Taliban. and United Nations Security Council sanctions make it illegal for the United States, U.N. The problem is it’s hard, both morally and legally, for international agencies and banks to release any money for Afghanistan now that a bunch of blacklisted terrorists run the government. ARTF donors want to hear from the Taliban that girls will have equal access to schooling before they agree that funds can be released for education. Other sectors, such as education, will be harder to tackle: Most teachers were government employees paid by the Ministry of Education, so the money has to pass through Taliban hands first. One immediate use will be to pay the salaries of Afghans working in the health sector for the next six months through a project called Sehatmandi, which was set up by donors that supported the former government to provide basic health care across the country. The World Bank is expected to transfer that fund on Friday to the World Food Program and UNICEF, which can use the money as they see fit. The World Bank has $280 million in its Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), which had not been committed before the Taliban victory in August. The money is not likely to be released until the first fiscal quarter of 2022-and then only incrementally. It will be months before complicated legal requirements needed to unlock the money are completed. The World Bank holds $1.5 billion in trust for Afghanistan, with $1.2 billion earmarked for projects agreed to by the previous government. The Taliban’s interim prime minister, Mohammad Hasan Akhund, recently called the looming famine a “test from God.” Now, the Afghanistan Analysts Network estimates around half of Afghanistan’s 40.2 million people are at “crisis or emergency levels of food security,” and more than half of the population will be in peril as winter progresses. The Taliban’s interim prime minister, Mohammad Hasan Akhund, recently called the looming famine a “test from God.”Īfghanistan’s aid-dependent economy-international donors previously accounted for 43 percent of its GDP and 75 percent of its public expenditures- has imploded in the four months since the Taliban took control. President Joe Biden’s administration is withholding food and money as punishment for the Western alliance’s humiliating defeat.Īfghanistan’s aid-dependent economy-international donors previously accounted for 43 percent of its GDP and 75 percent of its public expenditures-has imploded in the four months since the Taliban took control. The World Bank and many Western nations are under pressure to release funds that could avert famine in Afghanistan as a Himalayan winter closes in and the country’s former allies grapple with how to keep the population alive without enabling more Taliban atrocities.Īfghanistan’s descent into destitution since the Taliban’s victory in August is fueling concerns of an armed uprising or even civil war, amid accusations that U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |