G20 ministers meet to seek direct help to the people of Afghanistan

The extraordinary G20 summit on Afghanistan, organized by Italy, started today with the key challenge of sending direct aid to the country’s population, in the hands of the Taliban since last August and with international funds blocked.

The conference, behind closed doors, will also address issues such as the fight against terrorism, freedom of movement within the Central Asian country or the situation on its borders, the Italian presidency of the G20 indicated.

The Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, will offer a press conference at the end of the discussions to illustrate the conclusions of the summit.

The taliban and the United States reached an agreement in February 2020 in Doha that marked the withdrawal of US troops from the country, a circumstance that the fundamentalists took advantage of to launch a rapid offensive and capture Kabul on August 15.

Afghanistan international funds have been blocked since the collapse of the previous government, which prevents access to money from multilateral institutions, undermining the liquidity of Afghan banks and making food and basic necessities more expensive.

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, said today that the international community must find a way to inject liquidity into the country in the form of direct investments to people who do not end up in the hands of the Taliban.

The crisis already affects at least 18 million people, half the population, according to United Nations data, and one million children suffer from acute malnutrition and are at risk of dying, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF ).

In the summit participate the leaders of the twenty powers of the world, but also of some neighboring countries of Afghanistan and representatives of the UN, the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The summit is a personal endeavor of Draghi who, in the last stages of the group’s presidency, has managed to bring together the richest countries in the world to promote a joint role in Afghanistan.

His Foreign Minister, Luigi Di Maio, asked to avoid the “collapse of the Afghan state” because, otherwise, there will be “uncontrolled migratory flows to neighboring countries, with the consequent destabilization.”

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