The executive board of the World Bank has approved a plan to use more than 1 billion $ from a frozen Afghanistan trust fund to finance urgently needed education, agriculture, health and family programmes.
The plan, which will bypass sanctioned Taliban authorities by disbursing the money through United Nations agencies and international aid groups, will provide a major boost to efforts to ease the country’s worsening humanitarian and economic crises, the bank said on Tuesday.
In a statement the bank said, “it 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.”
Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) was frozen in August when the Taliban overran Kabul as the last United States-led international troops departed after 20 years of war.
Funds will be disbursed through UN and aid agencies, bypassing the Taliban, to ease worsening humanitarian crisis.