By Charlotte Greenfield and Andrew Mills
(Reuters) – Food aid to Afghanistan will be wiped out by the end of October under current funding projections, the country director of the World Food Program told Reuters on Friday, as United Nations officials continue to warn against funding cuts due to Taliban restrictions on women.
WFP has already cut rations and cash assistance for 8 million Afghans this year, underscoring the serious financial challenges facing aid agencies in Afghanistan, home to what the United Nations considers the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
“That’s five million people we are able to serve for a few more months, but beyond that we don’t have the resources,” WFP Afghanistan director Hsiao-Wei Lee told Reuters. “That, I think, conveys the urgency of our position.”
The cuts would begin in August, taper further in September and end in October, based on WFP estimates of current funds and financial assistance pledged by donor countries in the coming months.
The UN has already had to reduce its request for humanitarian plan funding as donors hold back. International officials say the blockage is partly due to competing global crises and stretched government budgets, but also exacerbated by the Taliban administration’s restrictions on women which advocates say are contributing to declining funding.
Since December, female Afghan aid workers have been largely barred from working unless the organizations obtain exemptions from local officials.
About 15 million Afghans threatened by lack of food need assistance, according to the WFP.
WFP needs $1 billion in funding to deliver food aid and complete planned projects by March, Lee said.
The WFP would stay in Afghanistan and carry out its other work such as nutrition projects, Lee said, even if the planned cuts took place.
Lee said restrictions on women were a “valid concern” of donors, but added that around half of WFP beneficiaries were women and girls and they were still able to reach women.
Lee added that food positioning for the country’s harsh winter must be completed by October to prepare for the colder months, and that he needed just over $100 million for the realize. Parts of mountainous Afghanistan are cut off by snow during the coldest months.
Currently, the agency had no funds for the operation and was forced to decide quickly to cut rations earlier than planned, as there was not enough time to get food on the spot.
“These are very difficult and very emotional conversations … our field staff in particular constantly have to deal with conversations about why this assistance needs to be reduced,” she said.
“For someone who has a starving child, it’s really hard to understand why their starving child isn’t selected for help, but the starving child from another family may be hungrier.”
(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad and Andrew Mills in Doha; Editing by Aurora Ellis)