Humanitarian Groups Struggle to Provide Aid to Afghans
By Elaine Pasquini
Washington, DC: The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan last week and the simultaneous takeover of the government by the Taliban has exacerbated the refugee crisis in the war-ravaged country.
Twenty years of conflict and US occupation contributed to the internal displacement of 3.5 million Afghans, with an additional 550,000 – 80 percent women and children– fleeing their homes after President Biden’s April 14 announcement that all US troops would be withdrawn by September 11. Adding to the crisis is the COVID-19 pandemic, severe drought conditions, food shortages, lack of cash, rising prices and an increase in armed attacks over the summer.
To address this catastrophic situation, on August 27, Washington, DC’s Center for Strategic and International Studies hosted a panel discussion featuring three humanitarian aid workers.
Facing the uncertainty of life under the ruling Taliban is at the top of the list of challenges facing humanitarian organizations providing aid to Afghan citizens, said Zuhra Bahman, the Kabul-based director for Search for Common Ground, an organization that engages in peace building activities. Other challenges are security for her staff, dealing with the loss of the group’s entire support network, issues with the banking system and whether financial aid will continue. “Many offices have closed down overnight, and we’re not sure where we stand,” she said. “A lot of the networks are affected by the mass departures, mass closures of projects and so on.”
In a written statement, Search for Common Ground called for engagement by all parties, including between the international community and the Taliban, to avoid exacerbating the mass humanitarian crisis.
“We believe that disengagement is going to harm normal ordinary Afghan people the most,” Bahman explained. “It is really important to continuously engage with the Taliban.”
Colleagues of Bahman, who lived under Taliban rule in the late 1990s, claim they have seen changes in the Taliban who, over the last 20 years, have been exposed to more Islamic societies and communities, she related. “Previously, the Taliban…had experienced small spaces and they hadn’t seen a variety of interpretations of Islam, a variety of different types of women’s dresses or women’s activity in the public.”
Her colleagues also noted that they could see that the Taliban are genuinely considering a freeing up of some of the freedoms of men and women. “But I suggest a wait-and-watch approach,” she added.
Bahman suggested “pushing the envelope” on the issue of girls’ education. “I haven’t seen a lot of international engagement around girls’ access to education, women’s access to health care, and a lot of issues around basic rights that most Afghan women are concerned about,” she said. “The Taliban needs to know that people like us are watching to see how they have changed or not.”
Providing security to female staff members is a top priority for Kathryn Striffolino, senior manager of Afghanistan’s humanitarian response portfolio for InterAction, a coalition of US-based international NGOs. To do this, she said, “NGOs need to establish and maintain principled humanitarian access with the Taliban…as well as with other armed actors…which means all conflict parties must facilitate safe, rapid and unimpeded access for both male and female humanitarian staff…and be allowed to provide impartial humanitarian activities on the sole basis of need – regardless of gender, ethnicity, vocation or any other factors.”
In order to facilitate funding and financial access, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control needs to issue a broad general license to include transactions involving the Taliban that would be necessary to support ordinary humanitarian activities, Striffolino said. “If and when a license comes through…it will be very helpful in terms of dealing with the cash problem and the ability to pay staff and to run programs. Right now, we’re starting to see banks de-risking and we really need that communication and support between the US government and financial institutions reminding them that they are protected.”
Aurvasi Patel, head of protection services for the UN High Commission for Refugees based in Bangkok, said that the current situation should make everyone more determined than ever not to abandon the Afghan people.
Nearly half of the 39 million Afghans are in need of humanitarian assistance, Patel stated. Especially at risk are children under age 14 who comprise 41 percent of the population. The United Nations warns that Afghanistan is facing a food insecurity crisis and that the country could run out of food within a month.
UNHCR has launched an interagency Regional Preparedness and Response Plan for neighboring countries with the objective to prepare for and respond to the needs of host communities in Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. “It will be critical that these appeals are properly funded so we can support the Afghan populations, whether they are in the country or whether they are forcibly displaced outside,” she said.
“Now is the time to do more for Afghans at risk and in need and who are displaced or are refugees,” Patel stated. “It’s not the time for us to leave. We need to stay and deliver.”
(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)
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