Taliban Takes Power: Foreign Aid Agencies Leave, Leaving Billions Of Dollars In Afghanistan

Illustration of Afghans running towards Kabul airport terminal. (Antara/Jawad Sukhahar via Reuters/pri)

JAKARTA - The success of the Taliban in entering Kabul, occupying the presidential palace and taking control of the authorities in Afghanistan. Making civilians flock to want to leave the country, along with the evacuations carried out by foreign countries.

This condition raises the question for aid agencies in Afghanistan, should they cooperate with the Taliban, or abandon their years of investment in the country and its 38 million Afghans?

The Taliban in the past week have promised peaceful relations with other countries, women's rights and independent media. However, some former diplomats, academics and the media say the Taliban remains the same as before.

For foreign aid agencies, this situation presents 'a paradox', said Robert Crews, a Stanford University history professor and author of "Modern Afghanistan: The History of a Global Nation" in 2015.

"If you are an aid worker in a state hospital, you serve a regime whose legitimacy is balanced," he said.

"But if everyone goes home, will the country collapse?" continued Crews.

The Afghan government's budget is 70 percent to 80 percent funded by international donors, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said Michael McKinley, who served as ambassador to Afghanistan in 2015 and 2016. Afghanistan is now in danger of facing economic collapse without such aid.

"The Taliban are going to need substantial outside funding, unless they regress to what they did from 1996 to 2001, which was essentially running government to a minimalistic level," said McKinley, now with consultancy Cohen Group.

"Living off the narcotics trade doesn't give them a way to stay in power," he continued.

While foreign governments and aid agencies evacuated thousands of people, they left billions of dollars in dependent projects, mostly through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund.

The United States has allocated US$145 billion to Afghanistan reconstruction since 2002, a July 30 report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction showed.

Meanwhile, the World Bank contributed more than US$2 billion to fund 27 active projects in Afghanistan, from horticulture to automated payment systems, part of the more than US$5.3 billion that development lenders have spent on the country's development and reconstruction.

The bank on Tuesday said it had halted disbursements in its operations in Afghanistan and was monitoring the situation closely.

Last Friday, a flight from Kabul landed in Islamabad with 350 refugees, including employees from the World Bank Group and other international agencies. An internal World Bank memo seen by Reuters confirmed that its Kabul-based staff, including Afghan employees, had been evacuated along with their immediate families.

"Our work in Afghanistan is critical to development throughout the region. I hope we will be able to have a positive impact once the situation stabilizes," wrote president David Malpass.

Meanwhile the Asian Development Bank, also with extensive operations in Afghanistan, remains committed to supporting Afghanistan's economic and social development, the group said in a statement.

Citing the lack of clarity over its members' acknowledgment of the Afghan government, the IMF suspended Afghanistan's access to the Fund's resources, including about $440 million in new monetary reserves allocated by the IMF on Monday.

Companies, including major US social media companies and natural resource groups, are divided over how to handle the Taliban, a microcosm of the wider inconsistency in how the international community classifies the group.

"We have to accept at some level the statements coming out of the Taliban leadership. They have to prove that they are serious about this," argues Daniel Runde of CSIS.