By Rukhshana Media
The United Nations and its partners launched the agency’s largest aid appeal on Tuesday, asking for more than 5 billion in funding to support half of Afghanistan’s population in the country and nearly 6 million refugees in the neighboring countries in 2022.
“Today we are launching an appeal for $4.4 billion for Afghanistan itself for 2022,” Martin Griffiths, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator said in Geneva, according to a statement.
The appeal also includes a call for $623 million by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to support 5.7 million refugees in five neighboring countries. This brings the total appeal for funding to more than 5 billion, the largest single country aid ever asked in the history of the UN.
Hours after the campaign was launched, the US announced a contribution of more than $308 million in humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan which will be distributed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), White House said in a statement.
“This brings total U.S. humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and for Afghan refugees in the region to nearly $782 million since October 2021, and we remain the single largest donor of humanitarian aid in Afghanistan,” Emily Horne, White House spokesperson said in the statement.
The UN also stated that the funding will go directly to the aid organizations, not through the Taliban government which does not have international recognition and some of its senior leaders are on the UN and the US sanctions lists.
The appeal is launched as the UN says 98 percent of Afghans do not have enough to eat, with nearly 23 million people facing extreme levels of hunger.
