The head of a senior aid agency warned on Sunday that funding cuts for Afghanistan were the biggest threat to helping women in the country.

Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said women and girls were bearing the brunt of declining financial support for NGOs and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.

In 2022, NRC assisted 772,484 Afghans. In 2023, this number dropped to 491,435. Last year, the aid agency helped 216,501 people. Half of the beneficiaries are women.

Egeland, who has visited Afghanistan several times since 2021, said: "In the past two years, we have seen other peer organizations cut programs and personnel. The biggest threat to programs that help Afghan women is funding cuts. To the future well-being of Afghan women The biggest threat is (lack of) education.”

In August 2021, the Taliban took over and foreign aid stopped almost overnight, plunging millions into poverty and hunger.

Sanctions on Afghanistan's new rulers, a halt to bank transfers and a freeze on Afghanistan's billions of dollars in currency reserves have cut Afghanistan off from global institutions and outsiders supporting its aid-reliant economy until U.S. and NATO troops withdraw. funding channels.

The United Nations and other agencies have urged the international community to continue supporting the troubled country.

Organizations like the Norwegian Refugee Council help maintain public services through education and health care programs, including nutrition and immunization.

But the Taliban edict has also exacerbated the difficulties women and girls face in accessing health care and education due to restrictions imposed by authorities and an ongoing shortage of female medical professionals.

Egeland said Afghan women and girls had not forgotten what world leaders told them that education and human rights were "top priorities." "Now we can't even fund livelihood programs for widows and single mothers," he told The Associated Press by phone from the western province of Herat.

The international community provides humanitarian aid to many countries that disagree with local policies. But he said opposition to Taliban policies, combined with a "general lack of aid funding" in many countries, was exacerbating Afghanistan's funding shortfalls.

Egeland said most of his discussions with Taliban officials during the trip were about the need to resume classes for women and girls. "They still think it's going to happen, but the conditions aren't right," he said. "They said they needed to agree on terms."