UNITED NATIONS, Jan 28 (NNN-XINHUA) – The UN team in Afghanistan, launched a 3.6-billion U.S. dollar-plan, to help reduce new-found suffering and save lives, a UN spokesman said.
The overarching One-UN Transitional Engagement Framework, aims to help the Afghan people meet their basic human needs, said Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General.
The funding is in addition to the 4.4-billion U.S. dollar-Humanitarian Response Plan, the United Nations announced on Jan 11, saying, it needed to aid 22.1 million afghans this year, Dujarric said. “It just shows … the increased needs that we see in Afghanistan, as we gain access to more regions.”
The UN team is working to reduce the suffering of the Afghan people by saving lives, sustaining essential services and preserving basic community systems, he said. “The framework is a way of better managing the resources that we will get and better managing the implementation.”
The framework calls for additional funding “to sustain essential social services, such as health and education; support community systems through maintenance of basic infrastructure … and promotion of livelihoods and social cohesion, with specific emphasis on socio-economic needs of women and girls.”
Afghans suffer from a hobbled agricultural economy, sanctions throttling financial liquidity and now, severe winter weather, following the Aug 15, 2021, Taliban takeover of the war-torn country.
Last month, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a humanitarian exemption to a 1988 sanctions regime. It said, humanitarian assistance for basic human needs in Afghanistan is not a violation of the sanctions.– NNN-XINHUA