Dear President von der Leyen,

In Afghanistan, a humanitarian disaster has unfolded. 23 million Afghans are starving today, 9 million are on the brink of famine, and every second child below the age of five is suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

To quote David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee, in his statement to the US Senate: “This is a disaster of choice. And the choices were not taken in Kabul, but in Washington, London, and Berlin.” After having fostered aid dependency for 20 years, when the Taliban took over, the international community chose to withdraw all aid (roughly 8 billion USD a year). On top of that, it imposed economic sanctions and froze 9.5 billion USD in assets of Afghanistan’s central bank. Roughly 2.4 billion USD are held outside the US, mostly in European banks. As a consequence, many ordinary Afghans simultaneously lost their incomes and access to their savings in the banks. This pushed the middle class towards destitution. The UN estimates that in 2022, 97% of Afghans might fall into extreme poverty.

This conundrum of challenges risks pushing Afghanistan into state collapse, anarchy, and civil war. This would have disastrous consequences not only for Afghans but for the wider international community. A power vacuum would destabilize the region, enable the resurgence of ISIS, and narcotics production would skyrocket. Even more people would be forced to flee, suffering inexorable hardship on their journeys. Large numbers of Afghan refugees arriving on European shores, in addition to millions of Ukrainian refugees, will further strain Europe’s capacity for integration of refugees and humane border management. This might prove politically destabilizing to some European states.

 

Short-term solutions

On January 11th, 2022, the UN launched the Humanitarian Response Plan 2022 for Afghanistan. It calls for 4.4 billion USD in funds to support the people of Afghanistan during this terrible humanitarian crisis.

Unfortunately, as of March 5th, 2022, the UN Humanitarian Response Plan is only 12.8% funded. We deem this unacceptable. So far, the EU’s contribution is minuscule. The European Commission has pledged roughly 5 million USD while three EU member states, Germany, Italy, and Ireland have together only pledged 6 million USD. We call on the European Commission and the governments of the European Union member states to step forward and meaningfully support the Afghan people.

In 2021, the EU has shown itself generous pledging to provide 1 billion € to the Afghan people. We laud the EU for its initiatives and especially thank the EU for providing funding for teachers in Afghanistan via UNICEF. However, given the conditions on the ground, we appeal to you to do everything in your power to double the EU contributions in 2022.

On March 31st, the UK and German governments will host a virtual donor conference for Afghanistan. We urge you to participate in the conference and name the European Commission funding pledge for the Afghan people in their hour of greatest need. Please also encourage the participation of EU member states in the donor conference.

 

Medium term solutions

While humanitarian aid is urgently needed now to alleviate the suffering of millions, this is not a sustainable solution. The Afghan economy needs to be allowed to function again. For this, Afghanistan needs a functioning central bank. A significant share of the frozen funds of the Afghan central bank are held in Europe, in particular in Germany with Commerzbank. We appeal to you to take the necessary steps in conjunction with EU governments and international partners to make the Afghan central bank funds available for stabilization of the currency, liquidity provision, and recapitalization of the private banking sector. We are happy to provide you with detailed proposals and further information on how this can be achieved. 

Financial sanctions on Afghanistan have made it impossible for NGOs and private businesses to transfer money into Afghanistan via international banks. Very recently, the United States has taken steps to significantly ease those sanctions, in particular via OFAC General License 20 issued on February 25th, 2022. However, international sanctions remain sowing uncertainty for international banks. We appeal to you to take steps to re-assess the European stance vis-à-vis financial sanctions on Afghanistan and adopt a new position along the lines of General License 20.

Finally, on March 17th, the UNAMA mandate is up for renewal. We ask you to support a strong mandate for UNAMA so that it can coordinate assistance on the ground and pressure the Taliban to conform to international basic human rights standards. Further, we encourage the EU to support independent human rights organisations which can monitor Taliban behaviour, especially in far-flung provinces.

Please consider your contributions towards Afghanistan as a preventative investment. It will allow Afghanistan to embark onto a pathway of positive development that will reduce the need for future humanitarian assistance and curb future refugees and narcotics into Europe. An investment today might go a long way in preventing much larger costs in the years to come. 

Sincerely,

ASEF

With the support of:

Human Rights Watch

Asylkoordination

Learn Afghanistan

Unfreeze Afghanistan

Menschen.Würde.Österreich

Freedom for Eurasia

And many other groups, organizations and experts