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Focus on humanitarian relief effort //Yearender//

The monumental task of rebuilding Afghanistan poses a daunting challenge to the United Nations, aid agencies and foreign governments. But developments since 11 September have given rise to the hope that the country can make significant progress after more than 20 years of war. "After 11 September it's a total new ball game," Antonio Donini, the UN deputy coordinator for Afghanistan told IRIN. "Now that things are stabilising we think that it will be possible to start planning for much longer term assistance, not just focusing on immediate needs but focusing on sustainable forms of aid which will allow the communities to reconstruct their lives." The long conflict in Afghanistan coupled with three years of drought mean some six million Afghans currently rely on humanitarian assistance for survival. Donini said the first priority was to provide food and shelter, so that people could get through the winter without risking death by starvation or cold. "The major effort is to increase food deliveries inside Afghanistan to the most vulnerable areas and to provide non-food items like tents, plastic sheeting, warm clothes and blankets to people living in the displaced people's camps," he added. Fazlullah Wahidi, director of the Afghan NGO Coordination Bureau (ANCB) told IRIN that the humanitarian situation in the country has deteriorated over the past twelve months. "The situation of the people is very bad, people have been displaced many times and have given up everything they had and are at the end of their survival strategies," he said. Millions in the so called "hunger belt", stretching from Badakhshan in the northeast to Herat in western Afghanistan need food aid. Access has been good from Kabul to Hazarajat and the main gap in food has been covered in the central parts of Hazarajat. Areas such as Chagcharan in the northwestern provinces of Ghor and Badghis remain difficult to access. WFP has engaged a team of Swedish specialists with snow ploughs to keep the roads open. In southern Kandahar, security continues to hamper aid efforts, and there has been massive looting of aid agencies. WFP distributed food aid to more than one million Afghans in the capital, it's currently doing the same in the western city of Herat. Afghans are one of the largest refugee groups in the world, with more than four million in neighbouring Iran and Pakistan and an additional one million internally displaced. In Pakistan, human rights groups often complain of illegal deportations and the harassment of Afghan refugees. Some 350,000 displaced people live in the camps around Herat. "These people sold their last possessions to pay for the journey to Herat," Donini said, explaining the vulnerability of displaced people. Maslakh, literally meaning "slaughter house", is the largest among the five camps there. In the aftermath of 11 September, some 100,000 displaced people now live in the southern province of Kandahar. Some remained stranded along the international border with Pakistan. Some managed to slip into neighbouring countries often becoming "invisible" as they stayed with relatives and friends. But with the fall of the Taliban the refugee situation is improving, with many people returning to their towns and villages. The UN refugee agency UNHCR recorded some 50,000 spontaneous repatriation from Pakistan and Iran in recent weeks. The UN expects a general repatriation in the spring. "We expect the return to be phased so that the capacity of the aid agencies will be sufficient to cater for the needs of the returnees," Donini said. Poor security has hampered aid efforts throughout the past year in Afghanistan. Following 11 September, all UN and most NGO international staff left Afghanistan. They are now returning after the establishment of the new interim administration on 22 December. However, security in some parts of the country remains a problem. "By and large the situation is improving, the UN has returned with its international staff to Faizabad, Kabul, Mazar, Herat and Bamiyan," Donini said. Kandahar, however, remain problematic for the UN pending security concerns on the ground. The establishment of a new Afghan interim government has helped enormously, say aid workers. "There is a wave of hope, things will move towards reconstruction and development and clearly our relationship with the new authorities is going to be very different from what we had with the Taliban," Donini said, adding that now they were dealing with a new leadership which was more facilitating. Wahidi stressed that along with clean drinking water, food, shelter and basic healthcare, education was necessary for rehabilitation. "Our future depends on education. We need to cover the 23 year gap," he said. "We have a large number of dropouts who would need some kind of short courses to fill the vacuum in their learning. I hope most of the schools will reopen in March." Giving his overall prognosis of the situation, Donini underscored that they had to be optimistic and had to plan for a gradual improvement of the situation. "Looking back two months ago, we would not have anticipated what is happening now and things are moving very fast," he said.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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