The UNAMA mandate and the UNOCHA Humanitarian Response Plan on Afghanistan

Mar 21, 2023 at 00:33 1074

After the takeover by the Taleban/Taliban, not only the situation of girls and women in Afghanistan has dramatically deteriorated, but the overall humanitarian, economic and financial ones too. Nevertheless, the focus of the world’s mass media has moved on to other crises and conflicts such as the covid-pandemic and Putin’s escalation of the war.

Nevertheless, Afghanistan has not totally been abandoned. On March 16, 2023 a U.N. Security Council resolution extended the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) until March 17, 2024.

The resolution by the 15-member U.N. body stresses the critical importance of a continued presence of UNAMA and other United Nations Agencies, Funds and Programmes across Afghanistan, and calls upon all relevant Afghan political actors and stakeholders, including relevant authorities as needed, as well as international actors to coordinate with UNAMA in the implementation of its mandate and to ensure the safety, security and freedom of movement of United Nations and associated personnel throughout the country.

In addition, this resolution requests that the Secretary-General reports to the Security Council every three months on the situation in Afghanistan and the implementation of UNAMA’s mandate, including at the subnational level.

Another U.N. Security Council resolution passed the same day requested an independent assessment of the Afghan in-country efforts, with a report to be presented to the council before November 17, 2023.

This second resolution demanded an integrated, independent assessment, after consultations with all relevant Afghan political actors and stakeholders, including relevant authorities, Afghan women and civil society, as well as the region and the wider international community.

The Security Council requests that the independent assessment provides “forward-looking recommendations for an integrated and coherent approach among relevant political, humanitarian, and development actors, within and outside of the United Nations system, in order to address the current challenges faced by Afghanistan, including, but not limited to, humanitarian, human rights and especially the rights of women and girls, religious and ethnic minorities, security and terrorism, narcotics, development, economic and social challenges, dialogue, governance and the rule of law; and to advance the objective of a secure, stable, prosperous and inclusive Afghanistan in line with the elements set out by the Security Council in previous resolutions.”

These two resolutions were co-sponsored by the delegations of Japan and the United Arab Emirates. After the vote, Lana Zaki Nusseibeh (United Arab Emirates) said the resolution requesting the independent assessment recognizes that the challenges facing Afghanistan — including a severe deterioration in the rights of women and girls, rising humanitarian needs, security threats and an unsustainable economic situation — demand a departure from business as usual. She added that the status quo that contributed to the worst women’s rights crisis in the world will continue unless the international community acts.

A recent Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) report underlined that, at first, China and Russia contended that UNAMA’s primary focus should be assisting with efforts to address the humanitarian and economic crises in Afghanistan. However, many other Council members strongly supported a more robust mandate for UNAMA spanning several additional areas, including the protection of human rights and the promotion of inclusive governance and gender equality. The resolution drafts presented by Japan and the United Arab Emirates were crucial to reach a compromise.

In addition, on March 9, 2023 the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) launched a 261-page long Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) on behalf of humanitarian organisations working in Afghanistan. According to this HRP, the number of Afghans in need has tripled since January 2020, from 9.4 million to 28.3 million. The increase is attributed to “the progressive shocks of COVID-19, the increase in conflict leading up to the takeover by the DFA [aka the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan], the resulting economic shock, recurrent drought and the impact of policies, particularly restrictions on women’s rights and mobility, since August 2021.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also said that a record 28.3 million Afghans — some two-thirds of the population, including women and girls — require humanitarian and protection assistance.

Foreign development aid once accounted for 75% of public spending in Afghanistan. Therefore, the total collapse of the economy and the need for humanitarian aid does not come as a surprise. The March 9, 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan requests $4.6 billion to support Afghans in need.

The Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) report mentions that the HRP launch had to be postponed because of the Afghan (pseudo-) Islamic Emirate’s December 24, 2022 decree banning women and the decision of as many as 150 NGOs and aid organisations to suspend some of their operations pending the ban’s rollback.

The AAN report stresses that three years of drought have resulted in diminished surface waters and a major drop in groundwater levels. An estimated twenty million Afghans are facing acute food insecurity, six million of which are facing “emergency levels” (one step away from famine). The AAN report underlines that the mix of economic collapse, natural calamity and gender repression has left the majority of Afghans in peril for the foreseeable future: 33 out of 34 provinces, and 27 out of 34 major cities/provincial capitals are considered in extreme need, with the rest in severe need.

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Photograph of the Kabul Military Hospital in 2013 by Masoud Akbari. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license via Wikipedia Commons.

Article added on March 21, 2023 at 00:33 German time.