Attachments
Ahmad Nader Nadery
Introduction
After more than a year under Taliban rule, Afghanistan is mired in dysfunction. Basic services such as health and education continue to decline, the public sector is paralysed and the private sector lacks basic preconditions for the kind of economic activity that could alleviate dire poverty. The country can be expected to remain in a major humanitarian crisis and state of aid dependency for years.
Since September 2021, the international community has been struggling with the dilemma of how to support the population and reduce hardship if the country continues to be led by an unelected, illegitimate regime, which includes officials who have been designated as terrorists and placed under international sanctions.
The situation of Afghanistan is not entirely unique. In Syria, Venezuela, Myanmar, Sudan and many other countries, the international community is similarly balancing the goal of supporting the population against the risk of legitimising an unrecognised or predatory regime. This discussion paper looks at lessons learnt from these contexts and proposes creative ideas for an alternative aid delivery framework, drawing primarily on the views of local leaders and experts. Ultimately, the shifting boundaries among humanitarian aid, ‘humanitarian plus’ aid, early recovery assistance and development may need to be revisited, so that donors can find a better balance among competing policy considerations in countries ruled by illegitimate regimes.