- Title: WFP says aid cuts to Afghanistan leave millions hungry this winter
- Date: 27th January 2025
- Summary: KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (JANUARY 25, 2025) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) WORLD FOOD PROGRAM (WFP) AFGHANISTAN COUNTRY DIRECTOR HSIAO-WEI LEE, SAYING: “We've seen levels of food insecurity… In August 2021, there was this massive deterioration in food security, just rapid levels of hunger that rose. And in that winter, we saw the IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classificati
- Embargoed: 10th February 2025 09:19
- Keywords: Afghan Afghanistan Crisis Food Poverty Shortage WFP World Food Program
- Location: HERAT, KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
- City: HERAT, KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
- Country: Afghanistan
- Topics: Asia / Pacific,Society/Social Issues
- Reuters ID: LVA002646327012025RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Despite improvements to food insecurity situation in Afghanistan, around one-third of its population are classified to be in acute hunger, according to the country’s U.N. World Food Program (WFP) director on Saturday (January 25).
Even though the number of Afghans in acute hunger has decreased from 23 million in 2021 during the peak of the current food crisis to the current number of 15 million, that figure still makes up to a third of the country’s population, said WFP's Afghanistan Country Director Hsiao-Wei Lee from Kabul.
Moreover, the food agency can only feed half the millions of Afghans in need after cuts in international aid and an impending freeze in U.S. foreign funding, Lee told Reuters.
Afghanistan was tipped to the brink of economic crisis in 2021 as the Taliban took over and all development and security assistance to the country was frozen, with restrictions also placed on the banking sector.
Since then humanitarian aid - aimed at funding urgent needs through non-profit organisations and bypassing government control - has filled some of the gap. But donors have been cutting steadily in recent years, concerned by Taliban restrictions on women, including their order that Afghan female NGO employees stop work, and competing global crises.
(Production: Ahmad Masih, Sayed Hassib, Gabriel Goh) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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