KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Sweden has contributed 50 million Swedish kronor (about $5.26 million) to the UN’s Special Trust Fund for Afghanistan as aid agencies grapple with severe funding shortages in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The Special Trust Fund for Afghanistan (STFA) announced the donation in a post on X on Wednesday. It thanked Sweden and said that by pooling resources and working together, aid efforts can reach more communities and support them in building a more resilient future.
The UN established the fund after the Taliban returned to power in October 2021 to address basic human needs, including essential services, infrastructure, livelihoods, disaster response, and advocacy for human rights and women’s empowerment.
Afghanistan faces one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, driven by economic decline, international isolation, natural disasters such as earthquakes, drought and flooding, mass returns of refugees, and a sharp drop in foreign aid.
Nearly 22 million people, almost half of Afghanistan’s population, require humanitarian assistance this year, with women and children making up the majority of those in need, according to the UN.
The World Food Programme has warned that about 5 million women and children are experiencing acute malnutrition, the worst recorded surge.
Humanitarian funding for Afghanistan has fallen sharply. The UN has appealed for $1.71 billion this year, but as of early June, only about $269 million, or about 16%, had been received, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said recently that support for Afghanistan had fallen to its lowest level in years, adding that the country had been included for the first time on the organization’s annual list of the world’s most neglected crises.
