More Needs to Be Done to Help Afghans After US Sets Up Support Fund, Experts Say

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The US decision to establish a fund for the people of Afghanistan from frozen Afghan assets is commendable, but more needs to be done to help vulnerable groups of Afghan population deal with the dire economic circumstances, experts said.

Afghanistan is facing a dire situation in the wake of the takeover by the Taliban*. The country's foreign assets, including $7 billion in the United States, were frozen and a number of countries and organizations have refused to cooperate with the radical movement.

On Wednesday, the US State Department said that the United States had established a fund for the people of Afghanistan that will disburse $3.5 billion of US-held Afghan central bank reserves to support the Afghan economy, while leaving the funds out of reach for the Taliban. The Afghan Fund will maintain its account with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) based in Switzerland.

"It is a positive development in the sense that might reduce the vulnerability of the most vulnerable Afghan groups and individuals over the coming winter, now estimated by the United Nations to nearly 22 million, or half of the Afghan population," Arne Strand, a senior researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, said, adding, however, that "the underlying economic and poverty challenges Afghans are faced with, about 95% of the population under the poverty line, can't be resolved by humanitarian aid only."

According to the expert, the best use of the fund will be to ensure economic stability and promote trade to revitalize the country's economy, while also giving some of the money to development projects that could preserve the investments made in health, education, agriculture and infrastructure throughout the last 20 years as well as address environmental changes.

Not Enough

In August, over 70 economists signed a letter to President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, calling on them to unfreeze all $7 billion of Afghanistan's foreign reserves. The economists argued that the funds belong to the Afghan people by right and returning anything but the entire sum would undermine the country's economic recovery.

"The US government's seizure of Afghan government money is criminal. These financial sanctions are condemning millions of regular Afghan people to hunger and illness. The poverty created by seizing this money also fuels instability in Afghanistan and the wider region. The policy is immoral and highly destructive. It should be reversed immediately," Christian Parenti, a professor of economics at John Jay College, City University of New York and one of the signatories, said.

Dialogue Needed

The main issue concerning Afghanistan's foreign assets is how to transfer them back to the Afghan economy while preventing the Taliban government to use those funds for their own purposes. This, however, may prove challenging, since the radical movement's cooperation will be required for the initiative to work.

"This is a dilemma with no easy answers, where it will be challenging to differentiate in a community between a poor Afghan and a poor Taliban soldier. On the one hand, will the Taliban, as the de-facto authorities, need to agree to this plan for it to be implemented and assistance delivered through the United Nations and non-governmental organizations," Strand explained.

He went on to say that the Taliban should be encouraged to take responsibility for the Afghan citizens and use the funds to provide basic services in due time, which would necessitate a dialogue with the Taliban.

*Taliban is under UN sanctions for terrorism.