UK pledges USD 374 million to Afghanistan in humanitarian aid

The United Kingdom (UK) has pledged USD 374 million towards the provision of food grains and other humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.

The commitments come ahead of an upcoming United Nations (UN) conference to seek pledges toward the UN Humanitarian appeal which was launched earlier this year and looked for commitments of over USD 5 billion, Tolo News reported.

"The UK is rallying countries in support of the Afghan people and helping lead the way in providing life-sustaining food, shelter, and medical supplies. Together with allies and partners, we can do more and will do more to help Afghanistan," Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said while announcing the pledge.

"The UN humanitarian appeal, the largest ever launched for a single country, is only 13 per cent funded," UN spokesperson Jens Laerke said ahead of Thursday's pledging conference which will seek additional funding of over USD 4.4 billion.

Laerke also said that the funds go directly to aid agencies implementing projects on the ground and that none is channelled through the Taliban regime.

The online pledging event will be held on Thursday at the ministerial level. It will be convened by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and will be co-hosted by Qatar, the UK, and Germany, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

The humanitarian condition in Afghanistan has continued to deepen since the Taliban takeover in August last year, with UN agencies estimating that over 50 per cent of the country's population is in need of immediate humanitarian assistance.

Roughly 23 million people are experiencing acute hunger and 95 per cent of Afghans are not eating enough, while 10 million children are in urgent need of aid to survive, according to the United Nations.

Earlier on Tuesday, Achim Steiner, Director General of United Nations Development Program (UNDP), on a visit to Afghanistan said that investment in Afghanistan's economy is necessary to stabilize the economic freefall, otherwise, based on UNDP's earlier reporting, about 90 per cent of Afghanistan's population will live below the poverty line by the end of the year.

( With inputs from ANI )

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