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UN warns Afghanistan economy in ‘freefall’
Under-Secretary-General for the UN’s Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths painted a grim picture on Sunday of 23 million people facing hunger; malnourished children overflowing in health facilities; 70 percent of teachers working without salaries; and millions of students – Afghanistan’s future – out of school.
Speaking virtually to the 17th Extraordinary Session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers in Islamabad, Pakistan, Griffiths said the crisis is unfolding as the value of the Afghani currency plummets, a lack of confidence in the financial sector destroys trade and the space for borrowing and investment dramatically constricts.
“The need for liquidity and stabilization of the banking system is now urgent – not only to save the lives of the Afghan people but also to enable humanitarian organizations to respond”, he said.
Griffiths also welcomed the decision by the World Bank’s Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund to transfer $280 million by the end of December to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP).
“This step should be followed by reprogramming of the whole fund to support the Afghan people this winter”, he said.
“Families simply do not have the cash for everyday transactions, while prices for key commodities continue to rise”.
The cost of wheat and fuel are up by around 40 percent and food now accounts for more than 80 percent of the average household expenditure.
And as international development support has frozen up, basic social services that all Afghans depend on are collapsing.
Griffiths cautioned that by the middle of next year, universal poverty – reaching 97 percent of the population – could be “the next grim milestone”.
“Within a year, 30 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product could be lost altogether, while male unemployment may double to 29 percent”, he spelled out.
The OIC met on Sunday to express their willingness to help avert disaster and contribute to the humanitarian endeavor.
Griffiths meanwhile also said that next year, the UN would seek its largest-ever funding appeal of $4.5 billion “to help the most vulnerable in Afghanistan”.
The plan is a stopgap measure for over 21 million people who need lifesaving assistance and must be funded as “a matter of priority”, he said.
“The crisis is huge. Our humanitarian response is effective and continues to scale up, thanks to generous donor support and your sustained engagement”, he stated.
Griffiths also said that Afghanistan will not get through the winter on emergency aid alone and stressed the need for “flexible donor funding” that can be used to ensure salaries for public sector workers and support to basic services, such as health, education, electricity and livelihood.
He said going forward, continued constructive engagement with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) authorities was imperative to “clarify what we expect of each other”.
“The consequences of inaction on these three fronts are clear: Afghanistan will collapse, people will run out of hope, and the region – and indeed the world – will see destabilization increase”, he underscored.
Noting that the OIC meeting was being held at “a moment of exceptional gravity for the people of Afghanistan”, Griffiths pointed out that “we have the advantage of being forewarned of the fate that awaits them if we do not act”.
Acknowledging that the meeting has provided both a chance and an opportunity to do so, he warned that “if we do not act with urgency and with a collective will, then there will be a terrible reckoning”.
“We cannot fail to do what we know is right, and what we know is possible”, concluded the Emergency Coordinator.
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
Sixty-one members of the U.S. Congress have urged the Trump administration to reverse its decision to halt immigration processing for Afghan nationals, warning that the move unfairly targets Afghan nationals following a deadly shooting involving two National Guard members.
In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the lawmakers said the incident should not be used to vilify Afghans who are legally seeking entry into the United States. They stressed that Afghan applicants undergo extensive vetting involving multiple U.S. security agencies.
The letter criticized the suspension of Special Immigrant Visa processing, the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan, and broader travel and asylum restrictions, warning that such policies endanger Afghan allies who supported U.S. forces during the war.
“Exploiting this tragedy to sow division and inflame fear will not make America safer. Abandoning those who made the courageous choice to stand beside us signals to those we may need as allies in the future that we cannot be trusted to honor our commitments. That is a mistake we cannot afford,” the group said.
The U.S. admitted nearly 200,000 Afghan nationals in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military and their families still wait at military bases and refugee camps around the world for a small number of SIVs.
An earthquake of magnitude 5.3 struck Afghanistan on Friday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
The quake occurred at 10:09 local time at a depth of 35 km, USGS said.
Its epicentre was 25 kilometres from Nahrin district of Baghlan province in north Afghanistan.
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