{"id":9021,"date":"2022-03-19T12:05:20","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T12:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=9021"},"modified":"2022-03-19T12:05:20","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T12:05:20","slug":"afghanistan-urgently-needs-a-functioning-banking-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2022\/03\/afghanistan-urgently-needs-a-functioning-banking-system\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Afghanistan urgently needs a functioning banking system&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>MONITORING (SW) &#8211; The Human Rights Watch has stressed that Afghanistan urgently needs a functioning banking system to address the humanitarian crisis.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Since January 2022,\u00a0roughly 13,000 newborns have died from malnutrition and hunger-related diseases,\u00a095 percent\u00a0of the population does not have enough to eat, and 3.5 million children need nutritional support. The United Nations has\u00a0called the situation\u00a0\u201ca food insecurity and malnutrition crisis of unparalleled proportions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHalf of those we admit for critical care are also malnourished,\u201d\u00a0a doctor with M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res reported. Almost 800 children in one hospital in Helmand province are there because of\u00a0acute malnutrition.<\/p>\n<p>While many countries have pledged humanitarian aid, Afghanistan also urgently needs a\u00a0functioning banking system\u00a0to address the crisis. Most Afghan banks are\u00a0barely operating now. In recent weeks, the United States and World Bank have unlocked billions of dollars in assistance, but restrictions on Afghanistan\u2019s Central Bank are still making large transactions or withdrawals impossible.<\/p>\n<p>Aid groups delivering humanitarian assistance say they are unable to move funds into Afghanistan because international banks remain wary of preexisting sanctions on the Taliban, and Afghan banks limit cash withdrawals due to currency shortages. Aid groups say that payments to Afghanistan are routinely blocked by banks wary of running afoul of sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, most groups use the informal\u00a0<em>hawala<\/em>\u00a0system to transfer funds, even though the service charges can range from 4 to 8 percent in cities or as much as 13 percent in remote areas. Before the Taliban takeover in August 2021, rates\u00a0were at about 2 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Donors have been understandably worried that efforts to restore Afghanistan\u2019s Central Bank would bolster the Taliban\u2019s rule. Since taking power, Taliban authorities have arbitrarily\u00a0arrested\u00a0activists and\u00a0journalists, executed former government officials, and engaged in widespread violations of women\u2019s and girls\u2019\u00a0rights.<\/p>\n<p>But Afghans need all their rights protected, including the right to food. While humanitarian assistance programs can help mitigate the economic crisis, they are far from sufficient. The Taliban also need to address the crisis, including by letting women work, and donors should monitor bank transactions to ensure funds are being used for legitimate humanitarian and commercial purposes.<\/p>\n<p>Without that, it will be impossible to ease the crisis and help Afghanistan\u2019s most vulnerable children.<\/p>\n<p>ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MONITORING (SW) &#8211; The Human Rights Watch has stressed that Afghanistan urgently needs a functioning banking system to address the humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,179,16,17,18,200,194,393,24,225,5,8,6,7],"tags":[12,13,745,806,187],"class_list":["post-9021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soceity","category-economy-business","category-report","category-security_","category-peace","category-democracy-human-rights","category-world","category-locality","category-women","category-corruption","category-politics_","category-governance","category-afghanistan","category-headline","tag-afghanistan","tag-taliban","tag-islamic-state","tag-banking-system","tag-us"],"views":428,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}