ON DEVELOPMENT | How the focus on Ukraine is hurting other humanitarian responses

Jul 9, 2022

The Russian invasion is sucking up attention, funding, and resources. Aid workers say it’s starting to cost lives. The UN’s appeal for Ukraine is more than 80 percent funded for this year. In comparison, the UN response plan for Afghanistan is around 38...

ON AFGHANISTAN | The U.N. Knows Afghanistan Is Messed Up. But It’s Keeping Mum.

Jun 27, 2022

An internal United Nations report details escalating Taliban violations of human rights—and little U.N. leverage. In the 10 months since the Taliban retook the country … the country has gone backward at vertiginous speed. The Taliban have reversed most of the...

ON AFGHANISTAN, ON DEVELOPMENT | Afghanistan needs international support. But what kind? Support Local NGOs!

Sep 13, 2021

Opinion | An age old story: bring in your own and crush the local. In its rush to help Afghanistan, the humanitarian world risks superimposing costly, parallel systems that ignore what already exists: a functioning public health sector, Afghan NGOs waiting for...

ON DEVELOPMENT | UN chief: World is at ‘pivotal moment’ and must avert crises

Sep 12, 2021

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a dire warning that the world is moving in the wrong direction and faces “a pivotal moment” where continuing business as usual could lead to a breakdown of global order and a future of perpetual...

AFGHANISTAN NEWS AND VIEWS: U.S. airstrikes rise sharply in Afghanistan — and so do civilian deaths

Dec 11, 2017

By Shashank Bengali, December 4, 2017, for The LA Times As U.S. warplanes flew above a cluster of villages where Islamic State militants were holed up in eastern Afghanistan, 11 people piled into a truck and drove off along an empty dirt track to escape what they...