Taliban administration expands ‘Food for work’ program
Jan 12, 2022: According to a report by Reuters, the Taliban administration said on Tuesday it was expanding its “Food for Work” program, which means giving wheat donated in lieu of cash to thousands of public sector employees after the financial crisis intensified.
Agriculture officials told a news conference that the wheat, which was largely donated by India to the US-backed Kabul government, was used by 40,000 workers to work for 10 kilograms of wheat for working five hours a day. He said the scheme, which has massively paid workers for public works programs in Kabul, would be rolled out across the country.
“We are ready to help our people in any way we can,” said Fazel Bari Fazli, Deputy Minister for Administration and Agriculture.
According to Fazli, the Taliban administration has already received an additional 18 tonnes of wheat from Pakistan with a promise of 37 tonnes more and is in talks with India for 55 tonnes. “We have a lot of work-meal program plans,” he said. It was not clear how much of the donated wheat would be used directly as humanitarian aid and how much would be paid to workers.
The expansion program highlights the growing concern facing the Taliban administration as the country runs out of cash and could raise questions among donors about the use of humanitarian aid for government purposes, while the country has strict restrictions on financial flows.
International sanctions on Taliban members, frozen central bank assets and a sudden drop in international aid, once the backbone of the economy, have left the Taliban government with limited government funding and a growing economic crisis.
Humanitarian aid from foreign governments continues to prevent millions from starving to death, but it is designed to ignore Afghan government channels and distribute them mostly through international multilateral organizations.
UN agencies on Tuesday asked donors for $4.4 billion in humanitarian aid for Afghanistan in 2022, calling the funds a “necessary stop gap” to ensure the country’s future.
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