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Efforts by President Biden to keep America's commitment to rescue and resettle tens of thousands of Afghan allies left behind in the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is being undermined by "bureaucratic dysfunction and understaffing," according to a government watchdog.

"The U.S. promised to resettle its allies in safety, but the United States is failing," a stark assessment from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) read. SIGAR released its 2023 High-Risk List report Wednesday, which identifies the serious risks posed to more than $8 billion the U.S. has sent to the Afghan people since withdrawal in August 2021.

The report comes as Afghanistan faces a "humanitarian catastrophe" caused by the brutal Taliban regime that assumed control after U.S. withdrawal. Inspector General John Sopko and watchdogs for the Defense and State Departments, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development are testifying to Congress Wednesday in a hearing entitled, "The Biden Administrations Disastrous Withdrawal from Afghanistan, Part I: Review by the Inspectors General."

They are updating lawmakers on their respective reviews of the Biden administration's handling of withdrawal, during which 13 American service members died and hundreds of Americans and thousands more Afghan allies were left behind.

BIDEN ADMIN REVIEW OF AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL REPEATEDLY BLAMES TRUMP

President Biden delivers remarks on the evacuation of American citizens and their families, Special Immigration Visa applicants and their families, and vulnerable Afghans from Afghanistan, in the East Room of the White House complex on Friday, Aug. 20, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Republicans have long sought to hold Biden accountable for the crisis. "This Administration not only continues to provide excuses for the self-inflicted humanitarian and national security catastrophe, but senior officials are actively obstructing meaningful congressional oversight," House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement announcing Wednesday's hearing.

The White House has called GOP-led attacks on its handling of Afghanistan "politically motivated" and accused Congress of neglecting to advance legislation that would expand eligibility for special immigrant visas to resettle Afghan nationals.

"When President Biden made the decision to finally bring our troops home and end the 20-year war that cost us countless lives and tens of billions of dollars a year with no end in sight, he also committed to safely evacuating tens of thousands of Americans and to welcoming Afghan allies who worked alongside the U.S. throughout the war, including by surging resources to improve the processing of special visas that had been all but stopped by the Trump Administration," White House Spokesman Ian Sams said ahead of the oversight hearing.

"Instead of supporting these successful efforts to evacuate Americans and give Afghan allies safe harbor, MAGA House Republicans are refusing to acknowledge their own history of opposing efforts to aid Afghan allies and are turning their backs on those who risked their lives alongside American service members for two decades in Afghanistan by opposing and delaying legislation like the Afghan Adjustment Act, revealing that these hearings are nothing more than political stunts solely aimed at attacking the President," he added.

MCCAUL SAYS BLINKEN TRYING TO STONEWALL AFGHANISTAN SUBPOENA FOR KEY WITHDRAWAL DOC AS HEARINGS BEGIN

Afghan refugees arrive to Dulles International Airport on Friday, Aug. 27, 2021, after leaving Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban. Some evacuees are American citizens or reside in the U.S. and were visiting Afghanistan at the time of the takeover. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The SIGAR report notes that just one month before the Afghan government collapsed, Biden assured U.S. allies that they would not be left behind. "There is a home for you in the United States if you so choose, and we will stand with you, just as you stood with us," Biden promised on July 8, 2021.

"However, the United States has left most of its allies behind, and it will take a year, on average, until each family reaches safety," the report states.

The most up-to-date figures show there are still about 175,000 Afghans waiting for the U.S. government to process their Special Immigration Visas (SIVs) or refugee applications. As of late September 2022, the U.S. has only issued visas to approximately 20% of SIV applicants, according to SIGAR. The report estimates it could take more than three decades to relocate and resettle all SIV applicants.

SIGAR identified a host of problems with the SIV program including, "chronic understaffing, reliance on antiquated IT systems, and inadequate interagency coordination."

TALIBAN CLOSES EDUCATION CENTERS, INSTITUTES SUPPORTED BY NON-GOVERNMENT GROUPS IN SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN

Hundreds of people gather near a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane at the perimeter of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Shekib Rahmani, File)

The report stressed the need for the government to balance "expeditious processing" for refugees with vetting for national security threats. "The Department of Homeland Securitys Office of Inspector General documented problems with vetting Afghans admitted to the United States in the fall of 2021, including two Afghans who were later determined to be national security threats and put into removal proceedings," the report states.

Additionally, the report reveals two Americans pled guilty to falsifying required documentation for Afghans to apply for visas and said a third has been charged.

SIGAR also identifies various risks of waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement or mission failure to more than $8 billion in U.S. aid to the Afghan people. Taliban interference with non-governmental organizations and United Nations operations has placed this funding "at greater risk than ever before," the report states.

This is SIGAR's 5th High Risk List, with previous reports released in 2014, 2017, 2019 and March 2021.It is the first report released since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, the White House released its own assessment of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which mostly blamed former President Trump's administration for constraining the conditions of evacuation.

"President Bidens choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor," the White House review said.

The document accused Trump of emboldening the Taliban by engaging in peace talks without consulting U.S. allies and partners in the region. It also emphasized that at the same time, Trump was decreasing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan with a series of drawdowns throughout 2020.

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By the time Biden assumed office, according to the White House, "the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country."

"While it was always the president's intent to end that war, it is also undeniable that decisions made and the lack of planning done by the previous administration significantly limited options available to him," White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.

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Afghanistan IG report hammers Biden administration for 'dysfunction' days after White House blames Trump - Fox News

The United Nations is ready to take the heartbreaking decision to pull out of Afghanistan in May if it cant persuade the Taliban to let local women work for the organization, the head of the U.N. Development Program said.

U.N. officials are negotiating with the Afghan government in the hope that it will make exceptions to an edict this month barring local women from U.N. work, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner told The Associated Press.

It is fair to say that where we are right now is the entire United Nations system having to take a step back and reevaluating its ability to operate there, Steiner said. But its not about negotiating fundamental principles, human rights.

The UNDP said Tuesday that it reaffirms its long-standing commitment to stay and deliver for the people of Afghanistan. Secretary-General Antnio Guterres spokesman, Stphane Dujarric, said that the United Nations continues to push back on this counterproductive, to say the least, edict by the authorities.

The Taliban have allowed Afghan women to engage in some work, Steiner said, and a U.N. report released Tuesday shows that the country desperately needs more women working, with its economy flailing.

The Taliban takeover has been accompanied by some very modest signs of economic recovery. There has been some increase in exports, some exchange rate stabilization and less inflation. But gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced within Afghanistans borders, is expected to be outstripped by population growth, meaning that per capita income will decline from $359 in 2022 to $345 in 2024, the report says.

Some of those economic problems are due to Taliban policies keeping most women out of the workplace, Steiner said. Those economic problems mean more need in the country, but the U.N. has decided that human rights are non-negotiable and it will reduce its presence in May if the Taliban do not relent.

I think there is no other way of putting it than heartbreaking, Steiner said in Mondays interview. I mean, if I were to imagine the U.N. family not being in Afghanistan today, I have before me these images of millions of young girls, young boys, fathers, mothers, who essentially will not have enough to eat.

A source of faint optimism is the Talibans allowing women to work in specific circumstances in health, education and some small businesses.

In one sense, the de facto authorities have enabled the U.N. to roll out a significant humanitarian and also emergency development assistance set of activities, Steiner said. But they also continuously are shifting the goalposts, issuing new edicts.

Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures since taking over the country in 2021 as U.S. and NATO forces were pulling out of Afghanistan after two decades of war.

A spokesman for the Afghan Economy Ministry, Abdul Rahman Habib, told the AP that international banking restrictions, the halt in humanitarian assistance and climate change explain the countrys poverty rate and poor economy.

However, he cited lower inflation and dependence on imports, improved regional trade and business relations, and the eradication of poppy cultivation as signs of economic progress and good governance.

Our future plans and priorities are developing the agricultural and industrial sectors as well as mining extraction, supporting domestic business and domestic products, more focus on exports, attracting domestic and foreign investors, creating special economic zones and much more, Habib said.

This month the Taliban took a step further in the restrictive measures they have imposed on women and said that female Afghan staffers employed with the U.N. mission can no longer report for work.

This is a very fundamental moment that were approaching, Steiner said. And obviously our hope and expectation is that there will be some common sense prevailing.

Aid agencies have been providing food, education and health care support to Afghans since the Taliban takeover and the economic collapse that followed it. No country has recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and the countrys seat at the U.N. is held by the former government of President Ashraf Ghani.

The 3,300 Afghans employed by the U.N. 2,700 men and 600 women have stayed home since April 12 but continue to work and will be paid, Dujarric has said. The U.N.s 600 international staff, including 200 women, is not affected by the Taliban ban.

We are reviewing how we can do our work and how we can do it while respecting international human rights law, he said Tuesday. We are doing everything we can to see how we can continue to do that.

Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed from Islamabad.

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U.N. to Withdraw From Afghanistan if Taliban Won't Let Women Work - TIME

Nearly 34 million Afghans are living in poverty and the countrys economy is on the brink of collapse, a new UN report shows.

According to the report, in 2020 the number of Afghans in poverty was 19 million compared to 34 million now, a 15 million increase. Much of the blame had to do withthe Taliban taking over the following year and the sudden lossof international aid and access to finance, the report noted.

In 2021, many aid programmes were cut back when countries refused to deal with the Taliban, resulting in an economic crisis.

"The cutoff in foreign assistance that previously accounted for almost 70 percent of the government budget, has resulted in a sizable squeeze of public finances," the report executive summary said.

The central bank has been unable to supply adequate liquidity to banks because of the inability to print money and the freeze on its foreign assets held by western banks.

The report, which was released on Tuesday in Kabul by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), details how Afghanistans economic output collapsed by 20.7 percent, following the Taliban takeover in 2021.

At least 85 percent of Afghanistan is projected to be in poverty, as there is an estimated population of 40 million. The UN aid appeal for international assistance to reach $4.6bn in 2023 is the minimum that is required to help Afghans in need.

Any reduction in international aid will worsen the economic situation of Afghanistan and would result in extreme poverty that would perpetuate for decades, the report said.

If foreign aid is reduced this year, Afghanistan may fall from the cliff edge into the abyss, the UNDP resident representative in Afghanistan, Abdallah al-Dardari, said.

In order to survive, Afghans have been selling their homes, lands and assets to generate income. Some people have turned their children into labourers and their daughters into child brides, the report says.

According to the report, the funding requirements today for Afghans to maintain their expenditures may have reached $5.3bn from the $900m needed two years ago.

No recovery in the country would be sustainable without the participation of Afghan women in the economy and public life. The restriction of womens rights, including a ban on Afghan women from working in NGOs, directly affects economic productivity, the report says.

Afghanistan: Worried Muslim countries meet over Talibans bans on women and girls

Only the full continuity of girls education and womens ability to pursue work and learning can keep the hope of any real progress alive, UNDP regional director for Asia and the Pacific, Kanni Wignaraja, said.

In December, the Taliban government first decided to suspend university education for women, and later issued an outright ban on education for women. However, some girls' schools have remained open.

Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, residents, elders and religious leaders in the country and abroad have challenged its claims that restricting education and work for women is permissible in Islam.

The move was widely condemned by governments around the world, including in the Middle East and the wider Muslim world.

Saudi Arabias foreign ministry expressed surprise and regret, calling on Kabul to reverse the move, andTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the Talibans ban as unIslamic, promising to follow the issue until it is resolved.

Link:
Afghanistan's economy close to collapse with 85 percent of people in poverty: UN - Middle East Eye

18 April 2023

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Aid should not be linked to policies on women - Taliban official

Weak signs of recovery in Afghanistan's economy are at risk of being undone by Taliban restrictions on women working for NGOs, the UN says.

The number of families living in poverty had nearly doubled in two years, its report found.

The Taliban said politics should not be linked with humanitarian aid decisions.

Afghanistan was pushed into economic collapse when the Taliban took over in 2021, and foreign funds that were being given to the previous regime were frozen.

Already, 34 million people - 90% of the population - are living below the poverty line. Two in three Afghans don't know when they will get their next meal.

The UNDP report noted signs of hope brought about by inflows of foreign aid through different UN agencies - coupled with improved security conditions, a reported reduction in corruption and better tax collection by the Taliban government.

But it stressed: "The economy cannot be reignited if women cannot work, while future economic growth is constrained by under-investment in girls' and women's education."

Various organisations have criticised the Taliban for the disastrous impact of bans centred on women

When the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in August 2021, billions of dollars in Afghan assets held abroad were frozen as the international community waited for the Taliban to honour promises on security, governance and human rights - including allowing all girls to be educated.

The United Nations and other non-governmental organisations have since played a crucial role in saving Afghans from going hungry.

But the UN said 94% of 127 national organisations it had surveyed had fully or partially ceased operations after the ban on women employees was imposed in December.

About 150 NGOs and aid agencies have suspended all or part of their work.

A senior Taliban finance ministry official told the BBC's Yogita Limaye in Kabul that the rules imposed on women were "internal matters" for the country and that their government was working to improve the economic situation.

"All the humanitarian aid and donations on the ground, those should not be related to these issues only," said Mairaj Mohammad Mairaj, the ministry's director for general revenue.

"It is our duty as men, in the Islamic view, to take care of our women sitting in their homes."

Mr Mairaj said there had been "a lot of corruption and misuse of power" in the previous government.

"We have stopped ill-practices like bureaucracy, corruption from our departments - this was the reason we have a very well managed structure of revenue collection.

"We need not only aid - we need trade," he said. "We need the international community to come and work with us."

Currently, more than a million children, male and female, have been forced to leave school to provide for their families.

Said Ali Akbar and his elder brother Ali Sena are among them. They hammer and weld away for nine hours each day in Kabul to earn just 150 Afghanis - less than $2.

"I really like school. I miss it. This is very hard work, but I have got used to it now," Said Ali, who is 11, told the BBC. He dropped out of sixth grade last year.

Their father lost his job when the economy collapsed and has now gone to Iran to find work. Their mother, Lila, begs on the streets.

Ali Sena and his mother Lila, during a work break

"I feel awful that my young children are working. This is their time to study and be something. But life is hard for us. I am struggling to find work, and they have to provide for the family," Lila told the BBC.

Some 84% of Afghanistan's 5.1 million households are having to borrow to pay for food, the UNDP report says.

Earlier signs of recovery, such as a rise in exports, an expected increase in fiscal revenue, and a reduction in inflation - have been fuelled by international aid amounting to $3.7bn in 2022, according to the UNDP.

UNDP simulations now suggest that if aid were to drop by 30%, gross domestic product (GDP) could contract by 0.4% in 2023 and the inflation rate might spike to about 10% in 2024.

By that time, per capita incomes could decline to a projected $306, compared with $512 in 2020.

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Afghan economic hopes threatened by Taliban - UN - BBC

ISLAMABAD (AP) Afghan authorities are closing education centers and institutes supported by non-governmental groups in the south until further notice, officials said Monday. The centers are mostly for girls, who are banned from going to school beyond sixth grade.

The Education Ministry ordered the Taliban heartland provinces of Helmand and Kandahar to close education centers and institutes while a committee reviews their activities. It did not provide an explanation for the closures and a ministry spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Mutawakil Ahmad, a spokesman for the Kandahar education department, confirmed that education centers activities are suspended until further notice. The decision was made after peoples complaints, said Ahmad, without providing further details.

Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures since taking over the country in 2021 as U.S. and NATO forces were pulling out of Afghanistan after two decades of war.

The female education ban extends to universities. Women are barred from public spaces, including parks, and most forms of employment. Last year, Afghan women were barred from working at national and local NGOs, allegedly because they werent wearing the hijab, or Islamic headscarf, correctly and a gender segregation requirement wasnt being followed. This order also includes the United Nations.

At least two NGO officials in Helmand confirmed they knew about the Education Ministrys order. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they werent authorized to speak to the media.

One said the NGO was active in nine districts, offering around 650 classes with 20 to 30 students in each class. Girls and boys attend the classes, he said, but mostly girls as they cant attend schools.

Most projects are from UNICEF, the U.N. childrens organization, with local NGOs working as sub-contractors or project implementers. Female and male teachers work in separate classes.

Ministry workers supervise all their activities, the official added.

Noone from UNICEF in Afghanistan was immediately available for comment.

An education official in Kandahar said many NGOs are active in the education sector and provide education for girls. But he said there is a need to review their activities as there is no accountability over their expenses and there are concerns over corruption and suspicions about centers and institutes being ghost schools. The official, a district director of education, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

It was not clear how many centers and institutes were shuttered or how many students are affected in the two provinces because of the order.

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Taliban close education centers in southern Afghanistan - The Associated Press