‘Donation target for Afghanistan met’

dpa Geneva The United Nations has reached its self-imposed target of 600 million dollars in aid for the suffering people of Afghanistan. According to figu...

dpaGeneva The United Nations has reached its self-imposed target of 600 million dollars in aid for the suffering people of Afghanistan.According to figures released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Tuesday, Germany contributed 76 million dollars and is one of the largest donors, along with the United States, the European Commission, France and Japan.The international donors not only met the UN donation target, but also helped to expand humanitarian work on the ground, OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke said in Geneva. Since the beginning of September, 7.2 million people in Afghanistan have received food aid. Around 900,000 have received medical assistance.UN agencies have access to all regions in the country, according to Laerke. But because of the banking and financial crisis in Afghanistan, not all funds could be used on the ground yet, he said. The humanitarian crisis is not over yet, he added. The Taliban took power in the country after the withdrawal of international NATO troops in mid-August.At the same time, donor countries stopped the payment of aid and development funds, and reserves of the Afghan central bank were frozen. International remittances to the country via the Swift system have been suspended.The United Nations had on Monday issued a warning about the severe consequences of a possible collapse of the Afghan banking system. “The economic cost of a banking system collapse, with its concomitant negative social consequences, would be colossal,” said a report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) published on Monday.The longer it takes to restore the financial and banking system, the longer the recovery period due to the subsequent lack of confidence from the viewpoint of international markets will be. “This erosion is hard to repair and could take decades,” the report stated. The UN said that protecting at least part of the commercial banking system is also critical to continue the humanitarian and other basic humanitarian programmes.