World Bank approves plan to use USD 1 bn frozen Afghan funds for education, health

Washington [US], March 2 (ANI): The World Bank on Tuesday approved a plan to use USD 1 billion frozen Afghan funds for aid urgently needed for education, agriculture, health and family programmes.
The executive board of the World Bank plan will bypass sanctioned Taliban authorities by disbursing the money through UN agencies and international aid groups, reported Tolo News.
It will provide a major boost to efforts to ease the country's worsening humanitarian and economic crises and there will be a "strong focus on ensuring that girls and women participate and benefit from the support," the statement continued.
The approach "aims to support the delivery of essential basic services, protect vulnerable Afghans, help preserve human capital and key economic and social services, and reduce the need for humanitarian assistance in the future," the bank said in a statement, reported Tolo News.
Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) was frozen in August when the Taliban overran Kabul in last August.
The World Bank statement said that as a first step, ARTF donors will decide on four projects worth about USD 600 million that will support "urgent needs in education, health and agricultural sectors, as well as community livelihoods," reported Tolo News.
Foreign governments ended financial aid constituting more than 70 per cent of government expenditures while the United States led in the freezing of some USD 9 billion in Afghan central bank funds.
The funding cuts accelerated an economic collapse, fuelling a cash crunch and deepening a humanitarian crisis that the United Nations says has pushed more than half of Afghanistan's population of 39 million to the verge of starvation. (ANI)