Publishing: I have clarified this, adding that he is regional director for Asia and the Pacific Mr. Chair, thank you very much.
Allow me to thank the distinguished members of the Special Committee on Afghanistan for your engagement with the country. There could be no better or more important time than now. Today, millions of people in Afghanistan—young children, families and communities—stand at the precipice of inhumane hunger and destitution.
This last year, 2021, was always going to be a tough year, with the worst drought in 30 years, the most intense period of conflict in decades and the impact of COVID-19. However, one factor above all provoked a precipitous surge in hunger and desperation: the suspension in August of international budgetary support that once represented 75% of the national budget, the suspension of development aid and the freezing of the country's foreign reserves.
Today in Afghanistan, 95% of households struggle to put food on the table. Twenty-three million people require food assistance. Nearly nine million of them are one step away from famine, and one million children, according to UNICEF, are at risk of perishing this year from acute malnutrition.
The humanitarian struggle and the human cost of what is playing out in Afghanistan today are immeasurable. In a hospital in Kandahar, I recently met Fatima, a one-year-old girl weighing three kilograms. Her brother lay emaciated in the next ward, with a distraught and desperate mother, herself malnourished, running between them and watching her whole world disintegrate.
Fatima's father has not worked for weeks. The job market has simply collapsed, with no liquidity, no oxygen in the economy, small and medium-sized businesses going under, casual labour opportunities nowhere to be found and the price of bread up by 50%. Fatima and her family are symbols of millions of other Afghan families who cannot cope today and, sadly, their number is growing every single day.
When others fled the country, WFP stayed in Afghanistan after the Taliban took Kabul in August to deliver life-saving assistance to millions of Afghans who did not have the option to leave. We stayed, alongside other organizations represented here today. We are now running WFP's largest-ever operation in Afghanistan, a program which by the end of 2021 had fed 15 million people.
WFP programs save lives, feed families, treat the malnourished and keep girls in school. Furthermore, WFP's programs provide stability, or a semblance of stability, in a country where economic collapse is forcing people to make desperate and perhaps even unimaginable decisions, including selling their own children to survive or joining extremist groups for monetary incentives.
To date, we have received fairly good co-operation from the Taliban, who have respected our humanitarian rules of engagement. In any conflict environment there are daily operational challenges, but we have addressed them rapidly and boldly with the Taliban and they have co-operated in troubleshooting incidents and addressing our concerns. WFP has unhindered access to every one of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, and every one of WFP's female staff are working today.
Our critical constraint going forward is funding. In spite of immense generosity from donors, WFP runs out of money in early April. We stand before a funding gap of $1.9 billion for 2022 alone, and we have absolutely no visibility on donor funding streams after that. To keep our operation going to feed 23 million people, we need $220 million U.S. per month, and we are terrified of what will happen when the money and the food run out.
Recent sanctions waivers have been useful and facilitate hard currency entering the country to support humanitarian efforts. However, I must stress today that humanitarian aid alone cannot avert an economic collapse. It cannot shore up the banking system, prevent small and medium-sized enterprises from faltering or create jobs on anywhere near the scale that is needed.
I want to be really clear. If the economy is left to collapse, millions more Afghans will be in urgent need of assistance. Humanitarian needs will reach levels we collectively cannot meet. Once this occurs, we will witness destabilization and mass movements across borders. We will see exactly the sort of environment in which extremism flourishes. That's why we must work together to give Afghans better choices to ensure a future for the millions of children at risk.
There is a segment of the population that still has a voice, that will contribute to a stable, moderate, Afghanistan, that will demand a country in which girls can be educated and people can live without fear. We cannot afford to turn our backs on that segment of the population.
I would like to laud Canada, which has been a strong partner for WFP in Afghanistan for literally decades. We sincerely thank you for providing $66.5 million Canadian in support to the humanitarian community since the takeover by the Taliban on August 15, 2021. The WFP commends you also for the important study you are undertaking and recommends that in that study you focus on food security and nutrition as being fundamental to addressing the crisis at hand. At the moment, this is a hunger emergency.
To conclude, Mr. Chair, working together as an international community, we can prevent calamity in Afghanistan, but doing so will require sustained focus, sustained engagement and sustained resource flows.
Mr. Chair, thank you very much.