How to aid Afghanistan?

How do you support the people of Afghanistan without giving succor to the Taliban? That is a question donor countries and aid organizations have been grappling with since the fall of Kabul. To be sure, there are templates from the past, but none seem ideal. All options, however, lead to one thing: a serious moral dilemma over a looming humanitarian crisis.

As the Taliban made their final, rapid advance on Kabul, donors stepped on the brake. Germany and Sweden suspended development aid. And while the European Union suspended development aid, it announced €200 million (US237 million) in humanitarian assistance.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank suspended aid flows that would fall directly under the control of the new regime. While the UK has committed to providing humanitarian aid (reversing the substantial cuts to Afghan aid made earlier in the year), it will do so through non-state actors; it has also said it could use further disbursements as a tool to hold the Taliban government to account.

Since 2001 - after the fall of the first Taliban regime to the USled invasion - donors have provided $65 billion in aid, using it to demand governance reforms and commitment to human rights.

US talks with the Taliban that began in 2018 included conversations about their commitment to supporting and allowing the education of girls, protecting ethnic minority rights and other human-rights issues, with the prospect of continued aid being used alternately as carrot and stick to ensure compliance (though in reality, little progress beyond vague commitments were made before the collapse of the Ashraf Ghani administration and the exodus of Western forces).

This is not a new problem, of course. Donors faced similar dilemmas during the first incarnation of Taliban rule. Unwilling to work with a government that excluded girls and women from civic life and vital services, as well as being seen as a state sponsor of terrorism, donors channeled aid through international and non-governmental organizations.

Now, international organizations like the World Food Program and UNICEF, and some international NGOs like the Norwegian Refugee Council, Médecins Sans Frontières and the mine-clearing NGO Halo Trust, have said they will continue their operations in the country. This offers a potential solution to the challenge of ensuring that the most vulnerable can continue to receive support.

But bypassing the state is not a total solution. In the 1990s, agencies like UNICEF and Save the Children were forced to suspend operations when their workers were threatened, or in places where Taliban officials excluded girls from schools.

Over the past week, we have already seen reports emerging of attacks on local UN staff, despite assurances from Taliban leaders that they can remain and work, and commitments to allowing women to participate in social, economic and political life are being rolled back.

Reliance on non-state, international organizations can only ever be a partial, and unstable, solution to the challenge of responding to Afghanistan's manifold humanitarian and development needs.

In other contexts, donors have sought to work with parts of the government that are more trustworthy, or operate in less politically contentious areas, for example, individual ministries or local authorities. But how likely is this?

The sectors that donors are most likely to want to support education, health, livelihoods - are precisely areas where the Taliban's policy toward women are likely to be at its sharpest. Few donors will be willing to work with a ministry of education that tells girls they may not go to secondary school, or a ministry of health whose policies contribute to worsening health for women and girls.

The problem is that long-term development, and reducing aid dependency, requires building state capacity, something that cannot be achieved by bypassing the state.

From the late 1990s, donors began to recognize the importance of the state, government institutions and governance in providing an essential bedrock upon which to build long-term sustainable development. Mechanisms such as budget support provided block grants to governments, giving them responsibility for its allocation. States were encouraged to plan, to set priorities, to take on responsibility for delivering development.

In fragile states, this is difficult, and the lessons of past failures show what can happen when donors ignore completely the government of a country.

“But bypassing the state is not a total solution. In the 1990s, agencies like UNICEF and Save the Children were forced to suspend operations when their workers were threatened, or in places where Taliban officials excluded girls from schools.’’