LONDON: Britain’s scheme to promote Afghan resettlement has been starved of appropriate resources, a former official has said, amid concerns that the government has unofficially abandoned the project, The Observer reported on Sunday.
The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme remains in limbo four months after Kabul was captured by the Taliban.
The failure of the project can be attributed to inadequate funding and government support, warned Adam Thomson, a former UK Foreign Office director for Afghanistan, who described the scheme as “cynical” political opportunism that lacked real results.
“It looks like a politically expedient announcement. With the media focus having gone elsewhere, the government has lost political will, lost focus and lost implementation,” he said.
“It’s a tried and tested technique. You announce something, you look good. Then somehow circumstances prevent you from actually achieving your targets.
“The resettlement scheme was a ticket for people to rebuild their life, but it’s just not been resourced appropriately. As far as I can tell, there’s no coordination.”
The scheme’s website reports that it has not yet opened for applications, more than 100 days since its apparent launch.
But in light of criticism over the handling of the ACRS, the UK government last week promised that it was “committed” to it, describing it as “one of the most generous schemes in our country’s history.
“It will give up to 20,000 further people at risk a new life in the UK. We are working across government and with partners such as UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) to design and open the scheme amidst a complex and changing picture. We are committed to working in step with the international community to get this right.”
But similar criticism has been leveled at the UK’s Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy. A session in Parliament heard that just 84 officials had been assigned to oversee the project, which is designed to resettle Afghans who worked with British forces in the war-torn country.
So far, the scheme has received more than 90,000 applications, suggesting that officials have had to deal with more than 1,000 applications each.
A spokesperson for Adam Smith International, which completed UK government aid programs in Afghanistan over the past two decades, said the failure to open the ACRS has left hundreds in grave danger.
“Almost none of our former staff have had any update or information about their applications since the evacuation finished,” the spokesperson added.
“The ACRS scheme is not yet open. This has left hundreds of our staff from UK projects in a desperate situation in Kabul, without hope and without information.”
