Humanitarian situation in Afghanistan: hunger – despite full shelves

There is no lack of food in Afghanistan, but there is a dramatic shortage of money. Caritas representative Recker explains what help the country needs now despite its fundamentalist regime – and how money comes into the country.

tagesschau.de: Aid organizations have repeatedly drawn attention to the plight in Afghanistan in recent weeks. How do you see the humanitarian situation in the country one year after the Taliban victory?

Stefan Recker: The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is catastrophic. I have been doing this type of work for more than 30 years in a wide variety of crisis and conflict regions, 17 of them in Afghanistan. I have seldom seen such a desperate situation. Most people in Afghanistan are doing poorly economically. But it is not a food crisis, but a purchasing power crisis. People have no money to buy food – and it is readily available. This is a huge problem.

If the aid money is not forthcoming

tagesschau.de: What is the cause of this purchasing power problem?

stretcher: For the past 20 years, Afghanistan has practically hung on the umbilical cord of the international community. 70 percent of government spending and 40 percent of gross national product were paid for by the international community. All transfer payments and funds for economic cooperation ceased completely after August last year because no one wants to support this government anymore. There is only humanitarian emergency aid, such as from Caritas International, the aid organization of the German Caritas Association. We distribute funds and, in cooperation with the other aid organizations and the United Nations, try to alleviate the need as far as possible,

tagesschau.de: That means: The need goes through all social groups and through all regions?

stretcher: Yes, 95 percent of the population have severe economic problems and more than 50 percent suffer from hunger.

tagesschau.de: If there was more money to be distributed, wouldn’t the situation be so precarious?

stretcher: Afghanistan has always imported food, exporting staple foods such as wheat or rice and higher value foods such as pomegranates, onions and saffron. But the 70 percent of Afghans who work in agriculture depend on imports of fertilizer or seeds. And that doesn’t come into the country anymore. People are really desperate.

Partners support without banks

tagesschau.de: What can you do as an aid organization in this situation?

stretcher: In Afghanistan we continue to have our own projects in the field of social assistance, for working with drug addicts, organizing help for mine victims, for working with women and children or internally displaced persons. We also run humanitarian projects where we distribute money through our partners to those in need. Unfortunately, the banks are not functional, but we have found ways to get money into the country on a limited basis.

tagesschau.de: How strong is the Taliban’s influence on what they do?

stretcher: Afghanistan has always had a strong bureaucracy that tried to interfere in any activity. With the current government there is still a lot of incompetence and threatening behavior. But we consistently only work with partner organizations that are very well networked locally. And they manage through goal-oriented negotiations with local authorities that activities can be carried out. There are problems, but we are optimistic that we can continue to carry out the aid projects.

Heterogeneous Taliban

tagesschau.de: After a year in the Taliban, what is left of the opportunities and possibilities for civil society that were there before?

stretcher: The Taliban of today are not the Taliban of the 1990s. These were a homogeneous group. When the leadership decided something, it went down to the lower levels. And if you had agreed on an action, that was respected by all sides. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case today.

The Taliban are now very heterogeneous. There are many different factions, including pragmatic ones, but most of them compete in fundamentalism. But there are also some pragmatic factions. However, they have worked on their outward appearance, presenting themselves better to the outside world than they act on the inside. As far as civil society in Afghanistan is concerned, I have become very pessimistic. Many people who have been involved in civil society flee abroad.

Little hope for girls

tagesschau.de: And what about educational opportunities for girls?

stretcher: Very bad. At the moment, girls can only go to school up to the sixth grade, i.e. up to the age of twelve. After that it’s over. There must be secret schools, set up in secret by private individuals, where older girls are taught.

tagesschau.de: But that doesn’t lead to a degree.

stretcher: That’s why we don’t know how to continue. Young women who are already at universities can still attend them – the Taliban allow that. But if no graduates from grammar schools move up, then the universities will eventually dry up. I think that’s what the Taliban are after.

tagesschau.de: What does that mean for the health service, for example, where many women who need the relevant medical knowledge were employed?

stretcher: I don’t know what the Taliban’s plan is. Apparently, the hardliner faction within the Taliban has prevailed, they don’t want any education for girls over the age of twelve and they aren’t interested in the consequences of this at first.

From emergency to transitional aid

tagesschau.de: What do you expect from the international community?

stretcher: For the time being, there will be no state bilateral development aid because no country recognizes this government – not even the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. We must therefore talk about emergency aid that will enable people to survive. And then, in the medium term, it’s about transitional aid, trying to create a local, basic economy that allows people to survive without outside help. But that is a dream of the future and a perspective of two to five years.

tagesschau.de: And how could such a transitional phase be set in motion?

stretcher: By helping small businesses hire more of the people who are now on the streets. By launching infrastructure programs. But at the same time you have to be careful not to support the Taliban, who take it up on themselves when a road is built somewhere. It’s a balancing act.

tagesschau.de: But in the end it means that somehow money has to come into the country,

stretcher: Afghanistan has historically been a net recipient of remittances from Afghan exiles because the country is unable to feed its own people. We now have a huge diaspora of Afghans in Germany who keep entire families alive in the country through remittances. There are systems in the Islamic world that make money transfers possible on an informal level. But that cannot make up for the loss of international funds that kept Afghanistan alive before the Taliban returned.

The conversation was led by Eckart Aretz, tagesschau.de