smoking report; What is the reality of American aid to Afghanistan?
| In its new report, the US Office of Inspection for Afghanistan published the amount of funds allocated by this country in relation to Afghanistan, which was misleadingly reflected in the media. |
According to the regional office of Tasnim news agency, the Office of the US Special Inspector General for Foreign Affairs Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) published its new quarterly report on Afghanistan on April 30; The report that the section related to the “credits allocated by the United States for Afghanistan”, became controversial. The country was formed in Afghanistan for the objective and independent monitoring of the American projects and activities in Afghanistan. Sigar continues to report even after the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. The media said
Cigarette in this report that the total funds allocated by the United States in the humanitarian aid sector to Afghanistan has announced 2.8 billion dollars since August 2021 (when the Taliban came to power).
According to this report, the US government has spent 5.38 billion dollars in the process of evacuation and resettlement of Afghan colleagues of American soldiers and other costs related to it, as well as another 5.53 billion dollars for hosting Afghan refugees in the United States.
Sigar also transferring half of the bank’s foreign currency assets Central Afghanistan ($3.5 billion) to the “Afghanistan trust fund” in the bankinternational settlement in Switzerland, over which the Taliban has no control, and no dollars have yet been withdrawn from it. has also taken into account the funds allocated to Afghanistan.
However, many media in Afghanistan, as well as some media in Iran, did not cover the Cigar report without Paying attention to its content, they headlined “America has so far aided Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban more than 17 billion dollars” and thus the costs of the process of evacuating the Afghan colleagues of American soldiers, hosting them in America and transferring the assets of the Afghan people to an account controlled by the United States in Switzerland was also associated with aid to Afghanistan.
But the reality of the matter; More than 80% reduction in aid
The SIGAR report further published the amount of funds allocated for Afghanistan from October 1, 2021 to March 31, 2024, which shows a decrease It shows the amount of aid to Afghanistan.
According to the table published, these aids are in the category of humanitarian aid, development aid and operations of the country’s agencies that work in Afghanistan.
U.S. agency operations including diplomatic programs, the cost of providing security, construction and running costs of the embassy, the costs of US Agency for International DevelopmentUSAID) in Afghanistan and the current expenses of the inspection departments of this country.
Statistics published by SIGAR in this report show that US aid to Afghanistan has not only not increased, but has decreased drastically.
The amount of American humanitarian aid to Afghanistan in fiscal year 2022 was one billion and 77 million dollars, this amount will decrease to 656 million dollars in 2023 It was found and this year has decreased to 237 million dollars with a decrease of more than 80% compared to 2022.
On the other hand, the alleged development assistance of the United States in the fiscal year 2022 is equal to 217 million dollars, in 2023 it is equal to 185 million dollars and this year it has decreased to 11 million dollars.
category Budget (in millions of dollars)
Fiscal Year 2022
fiscal year 2023
Fiscal Year 2024
Total
Humanitarian
1,077.69
656.20
237.88
1.971.77
Development
217.76
185.85
11.3
414.49
Agencies Operations
229.19
57.41
27.82
314.43
Security
100.00
0.00
0.00
100.00
Total
1,624.65
899.45
277.03
2,801.13
What has been the impact of the reduction of American aid on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan?
It should be noted that the United States is not the only country that supports humanitarian programs in Afghanistan, but it is the largest financier of these projects, however, the sharp reduction in American aid has not had a significant impact on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. /p>
Fuse Nite’s assessment of the level of food insecurity in Afghanistan February 2023
Comparison of Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) assessments of the level of food insecurity in Afghanistan from February 2023 and the same time in 2024, shows in the new map There is no news about the affected areas.
The affected areas by “FuseNet”, affiliated with USAID, indicate that if there were no humanitarian aid in these provinces, the level of food insecurity would be It was more severe in those areas.
Following a sharp reduction in aid, food insecurity has intensified in some provinces such as Faryab, Herat and Samangan, but in other regions of Afghanistan, the reduction in aid has led to a significant increase. Food insecurity has not been done.
What is the IPC and how does it define the level of food insecurity?
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) scale is a method for classifying the level of food insecurity. This scale includes five phases, which respectively include: phase one “providing most of the basic food needs of households”, phase two “border food insecurity”, phase three “acute food security and livelihood crisis”, phase four “humanitarian crisis situation” and phase Panch becomes a “famine or human disaster”. According to the report of Fusenet, Badakhshan and Nuristan were in phase 3 of food insecurity in February 2023, and the reports indicate that these provinces will The middlemen of food aid had not fallen into phase 4 of food insecurity or humanitarian crisis. https://newsmedia.tasnimnews.com/Tasnim/Uploaded/Image/1403/02/22/14030222113737859300133910.jpg”/>
On the other hand, Baghlan and Nimroz were also in the second phase of food insecurity and the aid to these provinces It was kept higher than phase 3. Now after one year, the drastic reduction of aid has not caused the category of any of these provinces to change in the IPC classification, and there is no news about the regions. Hashor Zadeh is not present in the evaluation of Fusant, which means that foreign aid has not kept these provinces afloat.
The review of the SIGAR report shows that the amount of American humanitarian aid to Afghanistan has decreased by 80%. But the level of food insecurity in Afghanistan has not changed significantly.
Why has the sharp reduction in American aid not had a significant effect?
There are several issues to explain this issue and at the same time it raises several questions; How was all this alleged American aid to Afghanistan spent? Was there basically any aid and was it effectively distributed and consumed? In this case, how is it that the reduction of aid did not result in a significant change? The amount and scale of American aid in Afghanistan was exaggerated.
The second possibility is that the economic situation of Afghanistan has fundamentally and significantly improved; This is also consistent with the World Bank’s findings that poverty in rural communities in Afghanistan has decreased between 2020 and 2023. Although a combination of both of these hypotheses is also possible.
In the end, it should be said that although Afghanistan is a poor country, official reports and field facts indicate that the country’s economy has not collapsed. And not collapsing.
| © | Webangah News Hub has translated this news from the source of Tasnim News Agency |
