Devex Newswire: Haiti, Afghanistan crises stagger aid groups

The global development aid community is responding to two major crises this week as Afghanistan falls back under Taliban control and Haiti tries to withstand a tropical depression days after being hit by a deadly earthquake.

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Aid groups that have been operating in Afghanistan for the past two decades, such as the Norwegian Refugee Council, are hopeful that the relationships they’ve built with armed groups inside the country since the 2001 U.S. invasion will allow them to continue their missions despite the Taliban takeover. Some have been providing emergency assistance such as cash grants for basic necessities to help the thousands who fled to the capital amid the chaos and violence of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last week.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Monday urged the Taliban to allow aid groups to continue operating in Afghanistan now that the group has full control over the country. She said during an emergency U.N. meeting Monday that 500 tons of aid from the World Food Programme was waiting at a border crossing — but WFP must negotiate with a new customs regime to get the food into the country.

In a speech from the White House Monday, President Joe Biden defended his withdrawal strategy and said that the U.S. would extend refugee status to Afghans who worked for U.S.-based NGOs or who were otherwise at great risk, including those who worked with U.S. media organizations. One U.S. military cargo plane taking off from Kabul reportedly carried 640 refugees to Qatar on Sunday after they crowded onto C-17 Globemaster III, a record number of passengers for such an aircraft.

Read: Aid groups shift to emergency response as US leaves Afghanistan

Carrots and sticks

 
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Monday indicated that the U.K. could withhold aid to Afghanistan in order to ensure that the Taliban are held accountable. The U.K. has already made cuts to assistance there: It spent £292 million on bilateral aid in Afghanistan in 2019, but only allocated about £94 million for the 2021-22 financial year. This morning, Raab said that could increase by 10% in response to the crisis.
Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell tells my colleague Will Worley that the U.K. has a “debt of honor” and must continue to provide expertise and development money to the people of Afghanistan. The country is expected to launch a new resettlement scheme for Afghan refugees.

Read: Raab: UK could withhold aid to Afghanistan to hold Taliban to account

Emergency measures

The World Bank is also evacuating staff from Afghanistan, a spokesperson told my colleague Shabtai Gold Monday. “Given the rapidly deteriorating security conditions in Afghanistan, the World Bank Group’s foremost priority is to keep our staff and their families safe," a statement reads.

Disaster response

Tropical depression Grace is further complicating Haiti’s recovery from a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck the southwest region of the country Saturday, leaving more than 1,400 people dead. NGOs are working to conduct needs assessments for people who lived within 15 kilometers of the epicenter of the earthquake and are likely in need of shelter, food, water, and medical supplies, Teresa Welsh writes. The twin disasters also come just a month after Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, plunging the country into a political crisis.

Meanwhile, some Haitians and allies on social media are urging would-be donors to send their money to local charities rather than international aid groups, citing misuse of funds sent after the 2010 quake that killed 200,000 people.

Read: Tropical cyclone brings challenges for Haiti earthquake response

+ In today’s edition of Devex Invested, my colleague Adva Saldinger digs into the private sector’s role in humanitarian response, and how the Connecting Business Initiative has been working with its network in Haiti to integrate local businesses into humanitarian response and recovery. Sign up to receive a copy.

Hive mind

COVID-19 has forced mental health organizations to find new ways of reaching their clients — and many of them are here to stay. Emma Smith looks at some of the innovations in delivering mental health services that have emerged from the pandemic, such as social enterprise StrongMinds, which uses a WhatsApp chatbot and an interactive voice response platform to engage users in Uganda and Zambia.

Devex Pro: How the pandemic spurred innovations in mental health services

Special delivery

Ten million COVID-19 vaccines partially produced in South Africa are being exported to Europe in August and September, according to an op-ed published in The Guardian by former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Many African nations have waited for access to adequate numbers of doses all year, with high-income countries chided for hoarding vaccines needed for vulnerable people around the world. Starting in October, Brown wrote, doses made in Africa are expected to stay on the continent after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa threatened to ban vaccine exports from South Africa altogether.

Read: Europe receiving 10M COVID-19 vaccine doses produced in South Africa 

In other news

The U.S. Treasury will "strongly oppose" coal-powered projects, according to its new financing guidance for multilateral development banks launched Monday. [Reuters]

Critics censured Australia's purchase of 500,000 doses of sought-after Pfizer vaccines from COVAX, despite having domestically produced supplies of AstraZeneca. [The Guardian]

Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey have sent medical aid to Lebanon in response to a fuel tank explosion that killed 28 people and wounded 79. [Xinhua]

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