Afghanistan is in dire need of foreign assistance after its government, led by President Ashraf Ghani, was toppled by the Taliban in August. Two decades of war have ravaged the country, and the Taliban takeover has further exacerbated hunger and poverty. With the Taliban in control, the international community suspended development aid worth billions to Afghanistan—citing human rights abuses and wanted terrorists in the Taliban government—and refused to recognise the Taliban as the legitimate government.
Donors have expressed concern about how the aid would be used and resorted to economic sanctions and severe funding cuts. Among their concerns are fears that the Taliban would strengthen the resolve of the Taliban but more importantly that the aid would be seen as an implicit recognition of the group and its government.
However, freezing assets and funding cuts are not the most effective solutions to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Providing humanitarian aid to the war-torn country should have been a priority, as the withdrawal of foreign troops allowed the Taliban to re-establish their emirate and take control of the country. The swift and unorganised withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan may have averted terror threats to the West, but it compromised the basic human rights of the Afghan people.
As stated by NPR, “Who is running the country right now has nothing to do with the majority of people inside of Afghanistan.” The international community can deliver humanitarian aid to Afghanistan without offering legitimacy and recognition to the new administration, as assistance doesn’t inherently provide legitimacy to the country the aid is being supplied to.
Before foreign troop withdrawal, 80% of Afghanistan’s budget was funded by international donors and international aid made up 40% of its GDP. The billions of dollars invested in Afghanistan for development has made the country severely dependent on international grants to meet essential services and pay civil servants. To Afghanistan’s dependency in context, when the United States (US) reduced civil aid to the war-torn country in 2013, the overall poverty rate reportedly increased by 3%, the unemployment rate of Afghan men tripled, 76% of the rural jobs created from 2007-2008 were lost, and the number of people below the poverty line increased from 38.3% in 2012 to 55% in 2017.
According to a report by the Observer Research Foundation: “This increase in poverty coincided with the gradual reduction in aid flows from around 100 per cent of the GDP in 2009 to less than 42.9 of the GDP in 2020, which led to the contraction of the service sector, leading to an associated deterioration in employment and income.” Apart from aid reduction, political instability and growing insurgency also contributed to the Afghan economy’s contraction.
This situation now threatens to repeat itself, possibly with far worse ramifications this time around. The US Federal Reserve has frozen all of Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves worth $7 billion, which led to the fall of the Afghan currency and hyperinflation. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have also suspended aid to the war-torn country.
Since the withdrawal of foreign troops, the country has also been thrust into an economic and food crisis, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and drought. The Taliban sustained themselves via opium trade, taxation, and extortion, but this illicitly generated revenue cannot be used to maintain an entire country’s economy and provide essential services. In addition, a lot of the Taliban’s assets and leaders are sanctioned, with their overseas assets frozen and wire transfers cancelled.
Against this backdrop, one can’t help but question the ethics of withholding aid to a country that is existentially dependent on it. Several international actors have argued that the suspension of aid does more harm to the people it is supposedly trying to protect than the Taliban. For example, the United Nations World Food Programme reported that around 14 million people in Afghanistan are food insecure and claimed that the country needs aid worth $200 million to sustain operations for this year.
Given this dire situation, international actors are now scrambling for ways to deliver aid without the risk of valuable funds and aid being misappropriated by the Taliban. Patricia Gossman, the associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch, has said, “Donor governments are understandably uneasy about providing assistance and funding to Afghanistan under the Taliban given their terrible rights record and newly emerging abuses.” She added, “To prevent a dire situation from becoming even worse, donors should urgently agree to support international agencies and nongovernmental groups that can provide emergency aid for food, health, and education, and create a plan to address assistance directly involving the Taliban.”
Along these lines, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned of the impending humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and urged donor governments “to dig deep to fund an emergency flash appeal.” Subsequently, at last week’s United Nations conference, international donors pledged more than $1 billion in emergency humanitarian aid in Afghanistan. Apart from this, the US, Pakistan, Qatar, Iran, and several other European nations have pledged additional assistance with food, medical supplies, and essential goods. The Taliban would not handle this aid directly, as it would be delivered via independent nongovernmental organisations, private banks, and UN-affiliated organisations.
However, even if it is possible to deliver aid without the risk of the Taliban grabbing it for itself, the possibility for some form of interference by the group still exists. In this light, the United Nations Security Council, the US, and Europe must review the international sanctions imposed on the Taliban to avoid complications in aid delivery. Furthermore, governments can issue special licenses to agencies and contractors to continue providing critical and lifesaving humanitarian aid to people. This would allow them to bypass the Taliban and deliver assistance to the country without fretting over misuse of funds. For example, earlier this month, the US licensed its own contractors to send food and other essentials goods to the country.
Ahmadi Saidi, a former Afghan diplomat, assured that the funding wouldn’t end up with the Taliban. He said, “It is humanitarian aid, which will be used mostly by the UN and nongovernmental organisations. The money will not be used by the Taliban; therefore, there is no risk of legitimising the regime.” Echoing similar sentiments, Suraya Dalil, the director of the WHO’s primary health care program, said, “It will be managed by the UN and aid organisations and will be spent to provide food and medicine to internally displaced Afghans. Providing humanitarian aid to Afghanistan does not mean that the international community is recognising the Taliban.”
Ultimately, fear of corruption and the Taliban’s influence still looms over aid agencies and humanitarian workers. However, economic sanctions and punitive measures only harm the people the international community has pledged to protect. Whatever political and ideological difference the international community may have with the Taliban, withholding aid only serves to ignore the current and worsening challenges of economic implosion and humanitarian catastrophe.
Does the Delivery of Aid to Afghanistan Inherently Legitimise the Taliban?
Despite a pledge of over $1 billion in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan last week, international actors remain wary that providing assistance inherently legitimises the Taliban.
September 24, 2021
SOURCE: THE INDEPENDENT