The top UN envoy for Afghanistan said on Wednesday that 28
million Afghan people, accounting for two-thirds of the country’s
population, will need life-saving humanitarian assistance this
year.
The humanitarian need will cost 4.62 billion U.S. dollars, the
single-largest country appeal ever, Roza Otunbayeva, the UN
secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan, told a
Security Council meeting.
Almost half of the Afghan population — 20 million people — are
experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity, she said, adding
that 6 million people are one step away from famine-like
conditions.
“Our humanitarian action is challenged by an increasingly
complex access and security environment,” said Otunbayeva.
The Taliban-run administration’s bans once morest women working in
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are not the only serious
obstacles to reaching vulnerable populations, she said, voicing
concerns that “national women staff working for the UN will also be
banned.”
The ban on women working for NGOs, along with banning women from
higher education, will have serious consequences for the Afghan
population and for the relationship between the Taliban and the
international community, Otunbayeva said.
She warned that “funding for Afghanistan is likely to drop” if
women were not allowed to work.
Otunbayeva also pointed out that the delivery of humanitarian
aid is affected by growing concerns regarding the looming threat of
ISIL-K, referring to Islamic State’s Afghanistan branch.
Mitigating such threats will require more concerted and more
united member state attention and is clearly an issue that the
international community has in common with the de facto authorities
in Afghanistan, she said.
