By Zahid Shah

ISLAMABAD (TSAT) - Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday welcomed the United Nations new initiative to launch over $5 billion funding appeal for Afghanistan.

“We welcome this UN initiative which has followed Pak-initiated special OIC FMs mtg's pledged support. I have been making this appeal to int community to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan where the ppl have suffered ravages of 40 yrs of conflict,” Khan tweeted.

On Tuesday, the UN and its partners launched a more than $5 billion funding appeal for Afghanistan to help the war-torn country as its current economic collapse affected the basic services and left 22 million in need of assistance inside the country, and 5.7 million people requiring help beyond its borders, according to the UN statement.

Speaking in Geneva, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said that $4.4 billion was needed for the Afghanistan Humanitarian Response Plan alone, “to pay direct” to health workers and others, not the de facto authorities.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called for $623 million, to support refugees and host communities in five neighbouring countries, for the Afghanistan Situation Regional Refugee Response Plan.

“Today we are launching an appeal for $4.4 billion for Afghanistan itself for 2022,” said Mr. Griffiths. “This is the largest ever appeal for a single country for humanitarian assistance and it is three times the amount needed, and actually fundraised in 2021.”

The scale of need is already enormous, both UN officials stressed, warning that if insufficient action is taken now to support the Afghanistan and regional response plans, “next year we’ll be asking for $10 billion”.

Mr. Griffiths added: “This is a stop-gap, an absolutely essential stop-gap measure that we are putting in front of the international community today. Without this being funded, there won’t be a future, we need this to be done, otherwise there will be outflow, there will be suffering.”

Rejecting questions that the funding would be used to support the Taliban’s grip on de facto government, Mr. Griffiths insisted that it would go directly into the pockets of “nurses and health officials in the field” so that these services can continue, not as support for State structures.

UN aid agencies describe Afghanistan’s plight as one of the world’s most rapidly growing humanitarian crises.

According to UN humanitarian coordination office OCHA, half the population now faces acute hunger, over nine million people have been displaced and millions of children are out of school.