The food crisis in Afghanistan continues to worsen, as international sanctions, instability, poor governance and climate change all combine to wreak havoc on the country’s agriculture sector and the local economy in general. Women and girls are the worst affected of the roughly 16 million food-insecure Afghans — one-third of the population. About one million pregnant or breastfeeding women are also malnourished, making this a crisis that is literally even starving a future generation.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says about 860,000 children under five are severely malnourished, while another five million face “moderate acute malnutrition”. However, despite farmers’ problems, food is still readily available in most cities and towns, unlike the case in other countries facing famines. What sets Afghanistan apart is that almost nobody can afford food because of astronomical unemployment and underemployment. With no government funding available for social services, and few people in positions to provide charitable assistance, no job means no food. Thousands of Afghans have taken dangerous routes abroad to earn for their families, but once there, even if they get jobs that pay enough to send money home to their families, they are faced with another headache, because it has become very difficult to remit money to Afghanistan legally.
Another area of concern is donor fatigue, which has forced major aid agencies that do have access to Afghanistan to cut incoming aid as the balance priorities. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine and other international conflicts have contributed to higher prices and reduced supply of several crops that would usually be provided to aid agencies at discounted rates. The WFP alone has cut programmes that assisted almost 10 million Afghans due to cost and supply considerations. At the same time, the Taliban government’s failure to provide security in the country means that many aid agencies are still afraid to set foot in Afghanistan, even with a limited footprint, because they worry for the safety of their staff.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 16th, 2024.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ