Some Afghan women are struggling to feed their children following huge aid cuts.

Sohaila is a widow. She has six children, her youngest a 15-month-old girl named Husna Fakeeri. The tea that Sohaila refers to is what’s traditionally drunk in Afghanistan, made with green leaves and hot water, without any milk or sugar. It contains nothing that’s of any nutritional value for her baby.

Sohaila is one of the 10 million people who have stopped receiving emergency food assistance from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) over the past year - cuts necessitated by a massive funding shortfall. It’s a crushing blow, especially for the estimated two million households run by women in Afghanistan.

Under Taliban rule, Sohaila says she can’t go out to work and feed her family.

“There have been nights when we have had nothing to eat. I say to my children, where can I go begging at this time of night? They sleep in a state of hunger and when they wake up I wonder what I should do. If a neighbour brings us some food the children scramble, saying ‘give me, give me’. I try to split it between them to calm them down,” Sohaila says.

  • HobbitFoot English
    93·
    6 months ago

    The US was trying to rebuild infrastructure, the Taliban blew up a lot of it as a means to fight the US since the same roads can also deliver troops.

    • girlfreddy@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      91·
      6 months ago

      The US spent a very small portion of the $133+ billion dollars on infrastructure (which is not the same as their advertised ‘restructuring’ or ‘reconstruction’).

      By some measures, life in Afghanistan has improved markedly since 2001. Infant mortality rates have dropped. The number of children in school has soared. The size of the Afghan economy has nearly quintupled.

      but

      … those interviewed said Washington foolishly tried to reinvent Afghanistan in its own image by imposing a centralized democracy and a free-market economy on an ancient, tribal society that was unsuited for either.

      and

      Congress and the White House made matters worse by drenching the destitute country with far more money than it could possibly absorb. The flood crested during Obama’s first term as president, as he escalated the number of U.S. troops in the war zone to 100,000.

      It all failed because of

      haphazard planning, misguided policies, bureaucratic feuding. Many said the overall nation-building strategy was further undermined by hubris, impatience, ignorance and a belief that money can fix anything. Much of the money, they said, ended up in the pockets of overpriced contractors or corrupt Afghan officials, while U.S.-financed schools, clinics and roads fell into disrepair, if they were built at all.

      Source

      • HobbitFoot English
        83·
        6 months ago

        So money was being spent, but the US led coalition was trying to push change too much in the society, which fought back over several decades, and the USAl was bad at spending the money in Afghanistan? And it isn’t like the US just left, but it was being pushed out both via a negotiated peace deal and eventually at gunpoint.

        You can advocate to give aid to the Taliban government currently running Afghanistan, but it isn’t like the US has the will or authority to do much more in the country currently.

        • girlfreddy@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          33·
          6 months ago

          The US was forcing/enforcing its own image on a sovereign nation who didn’t need or want that … just like they had so many times before. And it failed spectacularly like it had before.

          Maybe next time they’ll ask what help the people want and provide that instead … but if Biden’s demands on the Palestinian Authority are any indication, America hasn’t learned anything from its failures.

          • HobbitFoot English
            41·
            6 months ago

            It wasn’t like the Taliban were asking for help in 2001.

              • HobbitFoot English
                41·
                6 months ago

                But you’re going to have to go through the government if the help is against the wishes of it.

                • girlfreddy@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
                  12·
                  6 months ago

                  Why?

                  There are always other ways to get the required info, like asking the tribal leaders what help they and their people wanted and/or needed.

                  • qdJzXuisAndVQb2@lemm.ee
                    43·
                    6 months ago

                    I get the impression there was nothing the US government could have done that would have satisfied you.