U.N. Gifts Taliban $32 Million

Afghanistan’s Taliban-controlled central bank on Thursday announced the receipt of $32 million in cash from the United Nations, ostensibly to finance humanitarian aid.

In December, the U. N. reportedly agreed to begin sending cash to Afghanistan every week to fund humanitarian efforts, ramping the amounts up to $20 million per week by March 2022.

The cash aid program is intended to stabilize the Afghan economy by infusing it with dollars to stave off a liquidity crisis. Afghanistan’s banking system went into crisis mode after President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal and the Taliban takeover in August.

The U. N. Development Program (UNDP) reported in November that a “colossal” failure of the banking system could be imminent.

UNDP conceded that efforts to stabilize the banking system by injecting U. S. dollars would face the risk of the Taliban simply stealing the cash.

“We need to find a way to make sure that if we support the banking sector, we are not supporting the Taliban,” UNDP Afghanistan head Abdallah al Dardari said in November.

“We are in such a dire situation that we need to think of all possible options and we have to think outside the box. What used to be three months ago unthinkable has to become thinkable now,” Dardari said.

UNDP worried about Afghan citizens hoarding their money under mattresses because they feared the banks might collapse, and warned a financial meltdown could make it impossible for Afghans to buy food and medicine. Other U. N. agencies said they needed to send cash into Afghanistan to pay staff and local workers.

In late December, the U. N. announced an ambitious $8 billion aid program for Afghanistan on top of the $1 billion already spent – one of the largest demands for funding it has ... (Read more)

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