As the two-year anniversary of the Taliban taking power in Afghanistan is marked, the Australian aid and humanitarian sector is calling on the Australian Government to increase annual funding to the country to $80 million, amongst other measures.
Today (August 15) marks two years since the Taliban overthrew the former democratically-elected government of Afghanistan, triggering a new era of instability and misfortune for the country and its people.
Since then, Afghanistan has been in the grips of a hunger crisis, with an estimated 95% of households not getting enough food to eat. Girls have been barred from formal education beyond sixth grade, and there has been a rollout of restrictions resulting in the almost total exclusion of women from public life.
There is a near collapse of the health system, galloping inflation and increased occurrence of natural disasters due to climate change. Urban and rural poverty levels are extremely high, and the media and civil society actors are routinely stifled.
Around five million Afghans fled the country and over three million have been internally displaced, according to UNHCR figures released last month. [Document – Afghanistan Situation Update – 1 July 2023 (unhcr.org)].
The Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) is using the anniversary to remind the Government that it has still not responded on the record to a bipartisan Senate committee report on Australia’s engagement in Afghanistan, [Australia’s engagement in Afghanistan: final report – Parliament of Australia (aph.gov.au)] that was released in April 2022.
Said ACFID CEO Marc Purcell:
“The report highlights that Australia has had a 20-year long engagement with Afghanistan, both militarily and in terms of development and humanitarian activities. We cannot abrogate responsibility now, not when Afghans need help more than ever before.
“The Government has been sitting on this report for over a year. To respond and act on the recommendations, would show that it is committed to helping to ease the pain of those people forced to live under fundamentalist rule.”
The report made a number of recommendations, including: providing ongoing targeted multi-year funding; to use existing channels for funding such as the United Nations and NGOs; and to help the Department of Home Affairs urgently improve its processes to acknowledge the many visa applications that are in its system.
ACFID and its humanitarian agency members have long been calling for an official Government response. In particular, it is calling for: Australia’s ODA aid allocation to Afghanistan to be restored to $80 million per year, after it had been decreased to $50 million per year in 2020-21, and to return to a pledge to process visa applications.
“We call on the Commonwealth Government to move quickly on its 2022 commitment to process Afghan aid workers and civil society leaders who were employed by Australian non-government organisations or who worked on Australian Government-funded aid projects,” said Mr Purcell.
“Millions of people in Afghanistan remain hungry and desperate, and Australia has an ongoing role to play,” he said.
“The best thing we can do now is to urge the Australian Government to show it is listening and to respond to the Senate report with details on how it plans to proceed.”
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact [email protected] or call 0401 721 064.
