Afghanistan desperately needs humanitarian assistance funding. Much of it is still frozen.

The days after the Taliban stormed Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul were like a train wreck for Westerners so used to TV footage of Coalition soldiers on patrol, UN and international aid agencies in the streets, and Afghans rebuilding their lives after decades of vicious war.

Then came the evacuations. Kabul’s main airport became a microcosm of the Global North’s many mistakes in Afghanistan: a highly militarized response to humanitarian crisis, an utter lack of long-term planning, and no concrete exit strategy. Suicide bombers struck Kabul’s airport multiple times as beleaguered Western troops and Taliban gunmen tried to arrange evacuations for tens of thousands of Afghans. The U.S. would go on to kill a civilian NGO worker and his family in a retaliatory drone strike for the bombings. 

For a week, Western viewers watched in horror as the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s government amid scenes of chaos. Canada, a country that has provided around $180 million in humanitarian assistance since 2014, vowed to do more. In August 2021, Global Affairs Canada announced an additional $50 million for Afghanistan and the region while promising to evacuate Afghans who sought refuge from the Taliban. 

What about now?

For many international NGOs working in Afghanistan, the deposition of the country’s national government by the Taliban is just another problem on a very long list. Afghanistan is now gripped by ongoing human rights crackdowns, a famine, and the persistent medical shortages that have defined the country for the last 40 years. Western countries backed by the UN are pledging hundreds of millions in additional aid, but Afghanistan needs billions in humanitarian spending for 2022 alone  – and the Taliban takeover is making it incredibly difficult for funders and NGOs to do their jobs. 

Delivering aid in Afghanistan today

The instability in Afghanistan right now is challenging for NGOs and governments alike. How do you deliver aid to a country that so desperately needs help while ensuring that money or supplies do not end up in the hands of the Taliban, an organization whose actions have included horrific human rights abuses against the very people NGOs and Global North governments are trying to protect?

Some NGOs stayed behind after the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s government in August. Islamic Relief Canada is one of them. In the midst of the country’s economic and political upheaval, it was forced to pivot much of its long-term development work like literacy sessions for Afghan women to short-term humanitarian assistance: distributing food parcels, running mobile health teams, providing nutrition services, clothes, and shelter. “I don’t even know how to describe it,” says Reyhana Patel, head of communications and government relations at Islamic Relief Canada. “The need is just everywhere.” 

Over the past few years, Afghanistan had made inroads on gender equality, economic prosperity, and alleviating food insecurity. Much of that progress is coming undone. According to a January 2022 humanitarian needs overview for Afghanistan compiled by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, all 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces are classified as either in “extreme need” or “severe need”. Twenty-three million Afghans – over half the country’s population – will be living with crisis levels of food insecurity thanks to drought and decades of war. 

“With coping mechanisms and safety nets largely exhausted…the collapse of basic services and development programming since August has pushed a large number of people reliant on development assistance into crisis,” the overview reads. According to Athena Rayburn – director of advocacy, communications, campaigns, and media at Save the Children International – there are instances of Afghans giving away their children to ensure their families have enough food to survive. 

Amidst that disaster, Afghanistan’s economy has more or less collapsed. Banks are virtually depleted. Around 90 percent of Afghanistan’s population lives on less than $2 US a day. The country has grappled with diseases like tuberculosis for a long time, but its beleaguered health care system – outsourced to NGOs in 31 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces – is dealing with fresh waves of COVID-19.  

CARE, another NGO with 61 years of experience in Afghanistan, is also still operating in the country. Barbara Grantham, CEO of CARE Canada, says the NGO is still providing financial assistance to Afghan families, alongside work opportunities and nutritional support. “We are delivering programs,” Grantham tells Future of Good, “and we don’t intend on closing any programs.” Ditto for Médecins Sans Frontières, another NGO with longstanding programming in Afghanistan. Joe Belliveau, executive director of MSF Canada, says the international humanitarian agency runs five major programmes around the country focused on nutrition, tuberculosis, trauma care, maternity care, and newborn care.

Yet many international humanitarian aid funders cancelled or paused planned disbursements to Afghanistan after the Taliban took over. While a recently secured deal with the World Bank may release as much as $280 million U.S, billions in cash reserves and financial aid is locked away or unavailable thanks to a combination of U.S. sanctions, the immense need in Afghanistan, and concerns about money going missing. 

International aid money on ice

One of the biggest fears of grantmakers sending money to Afghanistan is the possibility of it falling into the wrong hands — namely, the Taliban’s. The fundamentalist insurgency has been on Canada’s list of terror organizations since 2013. Providing “material support”, both directly and indirectly, to the Taliban is a crime, and there is no exception for delivering humanitarian aid to a population in need. Theoretically, a Canadian grantmaker that gives funds to an Afghani healthcare agency overseen by the country’s federal government could be held criminally responsible.

“We have rigorous financial systems in place to ensure that in any conflict zone where we move money, like Afghanistan, money isn’t diverted,” Patel says. Islamic Relief Canada has always had a system to monitor these transactions — as is the case for all legitimate NGOs delivering aid in conflict zones —  but the August takeover prompted them to re-examine that system, something that takes up time and effort that could otherwise go to humanitarian aid. But some international funders have gone much further than reviewing their financial integrity practices.

On August 18, days after the Taliban took over, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) froze $400 million U.S. in funds to Afghanistan due to what it called “a lack of clarity within the international community regarding recognition of a government in Afghanistan.” The World Bank followed suit with its own earmarked development funds less than a week later. All development funding from the European Union, including money earmarked for agriculture and law enforcement projects, followed suit.

This had a tremendous impact on NGOs operating in Afghanistan. “Most of our funding comes from assistance from country governments,” says Rayburn in an interview last December. “There wasn’t clarity about what would happen to that funding. And what we’ve seen since then is that many of those funds have been frozen or haven’t restarted.” Later in December, the BBC reported $280 million would be transferred from the World Bank-administered Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund to the UN’s World Food Program and Unicef, two UN agencies. But it isn’t clear whether all of the money will eventually be released, and the plan requires approval from the U.S., one of the Fund’s largest donors — and a country with strict economic sanctions on Afghanistan at the moment.

In January 2022, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released its largest humanitarian response plan ever to help Afghanistan: a $4.44 billion U.S. to help 22.1 million Afghans in need of life-saving humanitarian support. Roughly 5.5 million more Afghans are believed to need help compared to last year thanks to “the sharp increase in the number of people in acute food insecurity, the broad-based collapse in economic conditions and availability of basic services.” 

Major Western countries like the U.S. and U.K. have made pledges in recent weeks to provide aid to Afghanistan, but Rayburn told Future of Good in late January that as of yet, the world was nowhere close to meeting the $4.44 billion required to stabilize Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation. According to the Associated Press, the United States continues to hold onto $7 billion in Afghan foreign reserves. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres noted in January 2022 that “freezing temperatures and frozen assets are a lethal combination for the people of Afghanistan.” 

If a deal between major humanitarian funders and Western countries such as the U.S. is hammered out in the coming weeks or months, it may not counteract the damage that’s already been done to Afghanistan’s social safety net. “We’ve seen this major receding of humanitarian aid support as well as systematic support to the health system,” Belliveau says. “Right after the regime change, all of the major funding coming from Western sources — multilaterally and bilaterally — kind of dried up.” Many international grantmakers were funding Afghanistan’s healthcare system. Now, Belliveau says, hospitals are closing or becoming private fee-for-service clinics because healthcare workers aren’t being paid.

While Canada did announce $50 million CAD for Afghanistan in August 2021, the International Assistance Bureau, a program through Global Affairs Canada (GAC) that provides government funding to organizations operating in disasters and humanitarian challenges, did not formally “highlight” Afghanistan on its list of countries requiring action from NGOs. This means that Afghanistan-based programs would not benefit from the International Assistance Bureau’s funds that year.  “GAC reached out to NGOs last August on its annual process for considering initiatives that respond to complex health emergencies,” Geneviève Tremblay, an international development spokesperson at GAC, told Future of Good. “Due to the uncertainty surrounding Afghanistan at that time, the country was not highlighted, but it was always considered a top priority.”

The $50 million announced in August 2021 will go towards “experienced organizations such as the UN, Red Cross, and NGOs with operational capacity to respond to those needs,” the GAC spokesperson said. Yet the agency refused to provide details, including how much money was going towards NGOs working in Afghanistan – or even which NGOs would receive it – to “ensure the safety of people and organizations on the ground.” According to a government statement about the $50 million in aid released in August, GAC will be working with partners in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries that include World Food Programme, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. 

Conditions in Afghanistan right now demand an immediate response from NGOs on everything from food stability to advocacy for the rights of women and girls, according to sector leaders who spoke to Future of Good. With winter approaching and the rise of the Omicron wave, Afghanistan’s situation is perhaps more desperate than ever. However, some NGOs working in the region say they are finding it easier to work in the region than expected — and believe the funding freezes may soon end.

Working with the Taliban

The Taliban don’t exactly love foreign NGOs. When the group ruled Afghanistan in the late 90s and early 2000s, it permitted NGOs to conduct humanitarian work (the Taliban’s political wing even had a regulatory department for NGOs) but took a dim view of organizations that sought to improve women’s rights. Some more radical elements of the Taliban see UN-affiliated aid agencies as legitimate military targets (a war crime), according to a 2012 paper from Humanitarian Practice Network, and many Taliban commanders see NGOs as simply an extension of the Western militaries they oppose.

As one Taliban commander told researchers with Humanitarian Practice Network, “the work of these agencies was totally disposable, not permanent, and they just help you enough to survive.” There were concerns after the takeover in August that the Taliban might once again crack down on NGOs, and female aid workers in particular. Yet the Taliban proved to be a little more pragmatic when it came to banning foreign NGOs, or even restricting female aid workers, after they announced the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in August.

Rayburn says Save the Children International urged Taliban officials to allow their female staff to continue working in frontline roles. “They’re the backbone of our response,” she says. “There are 5.5 million people internally displaced in the country. Eighty percent of them are women and children. You cannot deliver services in a country like Afghanistan, with the gender norms that exist, to women and children without female staff.” Despite their traditional stance on women’s rights — that women are effectively the property of their male relatives — the Taliban agreed, although it wasn’t easy. “When we explained our position and how integral women are to our response, we didn’t need to do much more convincing,” Rayburn said. 

MSF had largely the same experience. Belliveau says the Taliban told them to continue doing their work and assured MSF that they wouldn’t face any trouble. In late 2021, Belliveau says MSF checked in with its staff in Afghanistan to see whether female staff had been prevented from coming into work. “As of a few weeks ago,” he told Future of Good in December, “we didn’t have any of those cases.” CARE is also continuing to operate without interference from the Taliban, a situation Grantham chalks up to the NGO’s decades of experience operating in Afghanistan and earning the trust of local communities.

That doesn’t mean NGOs are being cavalier about the security of their female staff. Islamic Relief Canada has had to implement additional safety measures for its employees. That isn’t easy, especially when NGOs try to strike a balance between delivering aid impartially in a way that won’t anger local authorities and ensuring that female staff can actually do their jobs. Seeking permission from the Taliban may seem strange or alarming to those who don’t work in humanitarian situations, but sector leaders say it is vital to ensure programming can actually happen.

“Our general approach is that we negotiate our access,” Belliveau explains, “and that means we will talk to anyone who has power or influence over our access for the security of our teams, no matter how they’re designated by Western countries.” If that means sitting down with the Taliban to ensure NGOs can gain access to a particular region of Afghanistan, so be it.

Doing the right thing

At publication time, the situation of humanitarian aid funding — and the NGOs, both local and foreign, who depend on it — is still bleak. The U.S. and other major humanitarian aid donors have agreed to send $280 million in developmental funding after months of debate, but there are major caveats. Teachers and healthcare workers in Afghanistan who are employed by the government don’t qualify. The U.S. happens to be one of Afghanistan’s largest development backers while also leveraging some of the strictest economic sanctions in the world against its government — and that doesn’t just mean the Taliban loses out. It deprives teachers and healthcare workers of their paycheques at the worst possible moment for the people they serve.

Belliveau believes Western government and international donors do want to help Afghans and ensure their money reaches people in need. But he believes the situation in Afghanistan will get much worse before it gets better. He rattles off the consequences of Afghanistan’s nutrition emergency, the collapsing healthcare system, the utter lack of a banking system, and a second drought in four years. “If there’s any kind of message here, it’s an appeal for governments to find whatever way they can to make sure that aid reaches those people who are most acutely affected by the crisis right now,” Belliveau says.

“There are ways. So, find those ways.”

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