Anxiety rises over Afghan economy
Some aid agencies are pausing activities amid major changes
War-torn nation’s residents face economic turmoil and humanitarian emergencies
WASHINGTON — Humanitarian aid groups are pleading with the Biden administration to provide them legal cover to engage with the Taliban without fear of penalties after the group regained power in Afghanistan.
The aid organizations want the administration to grant special licenses that would allow the routine humanitarian programs on which the embattled country has come to rely. Those include transferring funds, securing permits, and paying import duties and fees.
The intense, perilous efforts to evacuate Americans and vulnerable Afghan allies from Kabul airport before the month is over have monopolized much of Washington’s attention since the Taliban abruptly took over Afghanistan two weeks ago.
Humanitarian aid workers warn that an even more catastrophic situation is about to erupt. They say U.S. government action is badly needed now to mitigate the potentially deadly fallout on millions of innocent Afghans.
“Can we please start the conversation about Sept. 1 — and beyond?” Ritu Sharma, vice president of U.S. programs and policy advocacy at CARE, said in an interview, referring to the day after President Joe Biden’s deadline for removing all U.S. troops. CARE is a major U.S. nongovernmental organization that receives development and humanitarian funding from the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other federal entities.
Even before the rapid Taliban takeover, half of the country’s population, or almost 18.5 million people, relied on foreign aid. A severe drought attributed to climate change, and the health and economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic had already greatly worsened living conditions for many Afghans, triggering massive internal displacement.
“I think there is this visible crisis, which we’re all seeing,” Melanne Verveer, a former ambassador for Global Women’s Issues during the Obama administration, said during a recent Atlantic Council online forum, referring to evacuation efforts at Hamid Karzai International Airport. The airlift was further imperiled by a deadly terrorist blast Thursday that killed 13 American troops and at least 170 others attempting to flee the country.
But, she added, “There is an invisible crisis and we have to be aware of it because it’s going to be on top of us in a matter of weeks, and that is the humanitarian crisis.”
With the faster-thananticipated collapse of the central government and security forces — along with the exit of the U.S. military and its NATO partners, as well as the large foreign contractor base that supported them — Afghanistan’s tiny economy, its GDP a mere $19.8 billion in 2020, has been further wrecked. The local currency, the Afghani, has nose-dived, while food prices have gone up. The U.S. and other international actors have frozen the Taliban’s access to the previous government’s financial reserves.
At the same time, some humanitarian groups have paused their operations in the country while they focus on getting their endangered foreign and local staffs out of the country and wait for legal guarantees from the U.S. that they can resume operating in a landscape almost entirely under the control of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
CARE has paused its activities in Afghanistan because the legal landscape for working in the country has changed so much since the takeover of the Taliban.