UN will stay in Afghanistan but funding is drying up, chief says

DOHA - The United Nations will stay in Afghanistan to deliver aid to millions of desperate Afghans despite the Taliban’s restrictions on its female staff, but funding is drying up, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday. 

Mr Guterres, speaking to the media after a meeting of envoys from more than 20 countries in Doha to discuss a common international approach to Afghanistan, also said concerns over the country’s stability were growing. 

“We stay and we deliver and we are determined to seek the necessary conditions to keep delivering... participants agreed on the need for a strategy of engagement,” Mr Guterres said. 

The ban on female Afghan UN staff signalled by the Taliban authorities last month was a violation of human rights, he said. 

“We will never be silent in the face of unprecedented systemic attacks on women’s and girls’ rights,” he said. 

Women are also banned from working for other non-governmental organisations, and are barred from almost all secondary and university education and most government jobs.

Mr Guterres warned of a severe shortfall in financial pledges for its humanitarian appeal this year, which is just over 6 per cent funded, falling short of the US$4.6 billion (S$6.15 billion) requested for a country in which most of the population live in poverty. 

He stressed the meeting had not been aimed at recognising the Taliban’s administration – which no country has formally done.

He said he was open to meeting Taliban officials when it was the “right moment to do so, but today is not the right moment”. 

Tuesday’s talks involve envoys from the United States, Russia, China and 20 other countries and organisations, including major European donors and neighbours such as Pakistan, but exclude the Taliban government.

“Any meeting without the participation of IEA (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) representatives – the main party to the issue – is unproductive and even sometimes counter-productive,” said the head of the Taliban political office in Doha, Mr Suhail Shaheen.

“How can a decision taken at such meetings be acceptable or implemented while we are not part of the process? It is discriminatory and unjustified,” Mr Shaheen said.

Meanwhile, Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi will lead a delegation to Islamabad at the end of the week for talks with Pakistani and Chinese officials, the ministry said on Tuesday. 

Mr Muttaqi, who is subject to a UN travel ban, has previously been given exemptions to travel to the neighbouring country for talks.

The UN Security Council last week unanimously condemned the action against Afghan women, which the UN says has seriously threatened its efforts to aid the population.

Women’s groups staged protests on Saturday, fearing the Doha meeting could propose steps towards recognition of the Taliban administration that returned to power in August 2021.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday however that “is not up for discussion” at the talks, which are being held behind closed doors. REUTERS, AFP