World Bank plans moving $500m for Afghan aid

KABUL (Pajhwok): The World Bank is working on a plan to deliver up to $500 million from a frozen Afghanistan aid fund to humanitarian agencies, says a media report.

Reuters news agency quoted sources as saying that members of the World Bank Board were meeting informally today (Tuesday) to confer on the proposal.

Seeking to redirect the money to Kabul from the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), which has a total of $1.5bn, the proposal was thrashed out in recent weeks with US and UN officials.

The World Bank move comes as Afghanistan’s economy struggles and its people face a winter of food shortages and growing poverty.

Moving the funds into Afghanistan without exposing the financial institutions involved to US sanctions and inadequate focus on state workers are said to be among major hurdles.

The report said the funds would not be used to clear salaries for teachers and other government servants, something that may hasten the fall of public education, healthcare and social services.

“The World Bank will have no oversight of the funds once they are transferred into Afghanistan,” said one source familiar with the plans.

The proposal wants the World Bank to transfer the money to the UN and other humanitarian agencies, without any oversight or reporting. Calling US curbs a stumbling block, the plan says nothing about how the money will reach Afghanistan.

The source added concern about US sanctions continued to prevent the passage of even basic supplies, including food and medicine, to the war-hit country.

The approval of all donors, of which the US has been the largest, is needed for redirecting ARTF money.  Set up in 2002, the fund is administered by the World Bank, which suspended disbursements after the Taliban takeover.

Washington has ceased supplying US dollars to the country and joined in freezing more than $9 billion in Da Afghanistan Bank reserves besides stopping financial aid.

PAN Monitor/mud

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