United Nations: Poverty in Afghanistan will reach 97%
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs has warned that Afghanistan’s poverty rate will reach 97 percent.
Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, warned on Sunday that the poverty rate in Afghanistan would reach 97 percent.
Deborah Lions, the UN special envoy for Afghanistan, also called for funding to prevent the collapse of Afghanistan’s economic and social structure.
He added that blocking Afghanistan’s assets, as well as preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the country, would put millions of Afghans at risk of starvation and create a large influx of Afghan refugees.
Another UN official said that the current poverty rate in Afghanistan is 72 percent and if the current trend continues, poverty in Afghanistan will reach 97 percent by the first half of next year.
With the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan, the United States has frozen about $ 9.5 billion of Afghanistan’s foreign assets held by its financial institutions.
A few days ago, however, the World Bank announced that donor funds from the Afghanistan Reconstruction Fund had agreed to release $ 280 million of blocked Afghan money and transfer it to the World Food Program and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The International Monetary Fund has also frozen about $ 370 million of its financial assistance to Afghanistan due to the international community’s lack of transparency in recognizing the Taliban.
Following this action, the World Bank has suspended Afghanistan’s budget. The bank has provided more than $ 5.3 billion to Afghanistan since 2002.
