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UN Chief Asks World Bank to Free $1.2 Billion Aid to Afghanistan

  • Afghanistan could lose 30% of its GDP within year: Guterres
  • World Bank released $280 million of Afghan funds last month
A Taliban fighter in Kabul, on Jan. 26.

A Taliban fighter in Kabul, on Jan. 26.

Photographer: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images

The United Nations chief has called on the World Bank to immediately release a pending $1.2 billion in reconstruction funds to Afghanistan to ease a growing humanitarian crisis as the global body seeks to inject liquidity to prevent an economic collapse in the country.

“We must pull the economy back from the brink,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a briefing to the Security Council late Wednesday, adding that the world needs to “jump-start Afghanistan’s economy through increased liquidity.”