KABUL (Pajhwok): The Biden administration, through US Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced a total of $150 million aid for food security, children and gender equality in Afghanistan.
USAID and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) signed a $40 million agreement to increase international support for Afghan children, particularly adolescent girls, to realise their right to education, a USAID statement said on Saturday.
This is USAID’s newest contribution to Afghanistan’s education sector and comes after the Taliban’s March announcement blocking girls above grade six from school.
With the funding provided by USAID through this agreement, UNICEF will have the resources to provide hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Afghans with desperately needed cash assistance to keep their children in school — children who would otherwise not attend or drop out of school due to ongoing humanitarian, economic, and political crises.
In a separate statement, the USAID announced a $30 million commitment to support gender equality and women’s empowerment in Afghanistan.
This funding will be programmed through the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).
The USAID also announced an $80 million commitment to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to improve food security and nutrition for Afghans, including women, women-headed households and smallholder farmers and herders.
With this assistance, USAID will help Afghan farmers increase the production of nutritious food using environmentally-sustainable practices, and increase the availability of quality seeds and other agricultural inputs.
This funding will also improve smallholder farmers’ resilience to climate and economic shocks through crop diversification and promoting agricultural best practices, including through support to small-scale food producers, women, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers.
This support will also benefit small-scale Afghan agribusinesses, helping to ensure sustainable food production systems, and improve the food security and nutrition of vulnerable Afghan families.
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