Key aid group says Afghanistan's most pressing need is cash

Afghanistan is facing a looming humanitarian crisis as aid organizations struggle with ways to pay doctors, nurses and others on the ground because there is currently no way to transfer salaries to bank accounts there

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Afghanistan is facing a looming humanitarian crisis as aid organizations struggle with ways to pay doctors, nurses and others on the ground because there is currently no way to transfer salaries to bank accounts there, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

ICRC President Peter Maurer's comments echo those of the U.N.’s special representative for Afghanistan, who warned this week that the country is “on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe” and that its collapsing economy is heightening the risk of extremism. The country’s economy is estimated to have contracted by 40% since the Taliban took control in August.

The Geneva-based ICRC, which has operated in Afghanistan for over 30 years, is temporarily carrying in bags of cash to the impoverished nation and converting dollars into the local currency, the afghani, in order to pay some of its staffers. The ICRC has been able to do this with regulatory approval by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The ICRC also has an agreement with the Taliban-run Health Ministry that allows donor-funded payments to pass through the ICRC and bypass the Taliban, which has yet to be officially recognized internationally by any nation.

"The main problem in Afghanistan is not hunger. The main problem is the lack of cash to pay salaries to deliver social services which have existed before,” ICRC President Peter Maurer told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. Maurer spoke with the AP during a visit to Dubai.