In a test case to inject much needed liquidity into the dire Afghan economy, the United Nations has bypassed the Taliban-run health ministry to pay $8 million in salaries directly to some 23,500 health workers across Afghanistan over the past month.
The joint effort of the UN development agency UNDP and the health aid organization Global Fund resurrected the program that was previously funded by the World Bank, but was discontinued in August when it suspended assistance following the ousting of the Western-backed Afghan government by the Taliban.
Stressing the UN’s struggle to get enough cash into Afghanistan to help deliver humanitarian aid and prevent the collapse the health and education services along with the economy, UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, Kanni Wignaraja, pointed that someone had to step in.
She explained that these payments have happened with them taking the implementation risk while the Global Fund took the financial risk to try to save at least the people’s economy in the country and to prove in the process that the process is possible and that it can work.
Large chunk of the $15 million the Global Fund provided- nearly $8 million of which was used for salaries- was spent on providing basic medical equipment, essential drugs, and supplies.
UNDP worked out how to get the funds into Afghanistan and then it used the Afghanistan International Bank and unnamed large money service provider to transfer the salaries of health workers in 31 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces into their bank accounts or directly in their hands if they were in remote areas.
Wignaraja noted that the program in the next three months will be run by the World Health Organization and the UN children’s agency UNICEF, hoping it would give hope to these families and reignite healthcare services
Meanwhile, the UN would discuss with the World Bank the possibility of taking over the program again or finding a hybrid solution.
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