World leaders meet in Geneva for aid conference as UN seeks $600 million relief for Afghanistan to avert a humanitarian crisis
US President Joe Biden's administration has frozen Taliban's access to $9.5 billion held in American bank accounts after the insurgent group seized control of the country. IMF and World Bank have also cut off Kabul from foreign funding that was vital to run various relief initiatives.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says his organisation is struggling financially: "At the present moment the UN is not even able to pay its salaries to its own workers," he told reporters on Friday. Afghanistan is already facing multiple economic issues with people lining outside banks to withdraw whatever scarce cash they have in deposits. The Geneva conference, due to begin on Monday afternoon, will be attended by top UN officials including Guterres, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross Peter Maurer, as well as dozens of government representatives including German foreign minister Heiko Maas.
About a third of the $606 million being sought would be used by the UN World Food Programme which found that 93 percent of the 1,600 Afghans it surveyed in August and September were not consuming sufficient foods, mostly because they could not get access to cash to pay for it.
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