OIC Islamabad meeting to help Muslim world express solidarity with Afghans — envoy 

ISLAMABAD: Ambassador of Pakistan to Egypt Sajid Bilal has said a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Corporation (OIC) hosted by Islamabad later this month would help the Muslim world “express solidarity” with the Afghan people and galvanize international powers in aid of Afghanistan, which is facing an acute humanitarian crisis.
Pakistan will host the 17th Extraordinary Session of the OIC’s Council of Foreign Ministers on December 19 in Islamabad. The meeting’s focus is on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.
The United States and other donors cut off financial aid on which Afghanistan became dependent during 20 years of war and more than $9 billion of the country’s hard currency assets were frozen.
The United Nations is warning that nearly 23 million people –- about 55 percent of the population –- are facing extreme levels of hunger, with nearly 9 million at risk of famine as winter takes hold in the impoverished, landlocked country.
“The upcoming CFM would express Muslim Ummah’s solidarity with the Afghan people and would galvanize international support to arrest the fast deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan in the best interest of the people of Afghanistan, the region, and the world at large,” Bilal was quoted by APP news agency as saying at a press briefing on Sunday.
“With the advent of winter, the situation could aggravate the world’s largest humanitarian crisis if left unattended,” Bilal said, adding: “The continued engagement of the international community with Afghanistan was imperative.”
Highlighting Pakistan’s consistent efforts for the Afghan people, the ambassador said the first extraordinary session of the OIC CFM on Afghanistan was also held in Islamabad in the 1980s.
“In recent months, Pakistan’s Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister had extensively engaged with the world leaders to address the humanitarian situation arising in Afghanistan since August this year,” he added.
Last Friday, donors agreed to transfer $280 million from a frozen trust fund to the World Food Program (WFP) and UNICEF to support nutrition and health in Afghanistan, the World Bank said as it sought to help a country facing famine and economic freefall.
The World Bank-administered Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund will this year give $180 million to WFP to scale up food security and nutrition operations and $100 million to UNICEF to provide essential health services, the bank said in a statement.
The money would aim to support food security and health programs in Afghanistan as it sinks into a severe economic and humanitarian crisis that accelerated in August when the Taliban overran the country as the Western-backed government collapsed and the last US troops withdrew.