Only 13 percent of this year’s $4.4 billion emergency humanitarian request for Afghanistan — the largest U.N. appeal ever for a single country — has been funded so far.
arriving for the first day of the Afghan school year last week were told to go back home indefinitely. The Taliban dictum reversed an announcement — demanded by and promised to donor countries — just days earlier that all schools for girls would be open.
Donations for humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan had already slowed after a massive outpouring of aid last year following the Taliban takeover and U.S. troop withdrawal in August. The initial flow came as international aid organizations warned that the abrupt cutoff of foreign financing that had long provided more than 75 percent of Afghan government income would lead to mass unemployment and humanitarian catastrophe as the harsh winter approached.
Within days after the Taliban about-face on education for girls, the United States canceled a round of U.S.-Taliban talks scheduled to take place this week in Doha, Qatar. The World Bank, expressing “deep concern,” said grants being prepared to spend part of the trust fund on “agriculture, education, health and livelihoods” would not be presented for approval until there is “a better understanding of the situation and assurance/confidence that the goals of the projects can be met.