Daily Times

Prime Minister Imran Khan Saturday once again called upon the international community to provide immediate humanitarian relief to the millions of Afghans who were facing an imminent danger of starvation.

In a tweet, the prime minister also reminded that providing immediate relief to impoverished Afghanistan was also obligatory under the unanimously adopted UN Principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

The prime minister also tagged a news story published in the Guardian daily, UK, carrying excerpts from an article written by former British premier Gordon Brown to UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, calling on her to help convene a donor conference to raise $4.5bn (£3.3bn) for Afghanistan.

Brown, in his article, had warned that more than 23 million people were at risk of starvation if aid did not materialize.

The former UK prime minister said: “We are witnessing a shameful but also self-defeating failure to prevent famine”, adding that the UK should urgently take a lead in resuming the delivery of aid dramatically halted after Taliban announced their government.

The UN agencies had launched a call for $4.5bn in aid for 2022, its biggest-ever international appeal.

The US responded with a donation of $308m, to be channeled through independent humanitarian organizations. Brown said that was not enough. “The 35-country, American-led coalition that ruled Afghanistan for 20 years under the banner of helping the Afghan people has still put up only a quarter of the money that would allow UN humanitarians to stop children dying this winter.” Brown further wrote that he had written to Truss and to the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, to ask them to host an international donor conference “in January or at the latest in February” to break the impasse.

“The devastation the world was warned about months ago is no longer a distant prospect,” Brown said, adding, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator Martin Griffiths, Brown wrote, “forecasts that if we do not act, 97% of Afghans will soon be living below the poverty line”.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan had a telephonic conversation with Finance Minister ShaukatTarin and inquired about his health condition. During the talk, the prime minister congratulated the Finance Minister and his team on achieving the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 5.37% in three years, which led to creation of substantial jobs and rise in per capita income.

The prime minister highlighted that international economic organizations like Bloomberg and the Economist have recognized Pakistan’s successful economic reforms and initiatives taken during the Covid pandemic savings jobs and lives. He stressed to the FM to initiate steps to ensure the economic wellbeing of the urban lower and middle class population which has been affected by the imported inflation.

The prime minister and finance minister have been regularly discussing the ongoing global commodity price super cycle which has adversely affected inflation and trade deficit in Pakistan. The finance minister informed prime minister that the local food prices have been declining since December as reflected in the SPI. However, he is hopeful that the as soon as the international prices come off the pressure on imported goods will come down as well. Overall, the prime minister expressed satisfaction over tax collection, exports and remittances.