Donor countries face a dilemma in dealing with the "Taliban"
Afghanistan..a turbulent year and an uncertain future
An Afghan family camping outdoors, seeking government assistance in Herat Province.
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Women are the most affected by the situation of homelessness and poverty amid the cold winter conditions.
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Few countries witnessed a turbulent year like the one that Afghanistan witnessed in 2021, with the Taliban regaining control of the country mired in an exacerbating humanitarian crisis, especially with the approach of a severe winter.
The Taliban insurgency took control of the country in mid-August so quickly that it surprised everyone, even the movement itself, that many Afghans still wonder what exactly happened and what the future holds.
The memory of the world will for a long time be imprinted with the scenes of Afghans falling from the sky of Kabul, after trying in vain to hold on to the last evacuation planes to escape the new regime and misery.
For the Taliban, the main challenge is to transform an insurgency of mostly uneducated fighters into an administration capable of leading a complex and diverse country.
For the West, led by the United States and its NATO allies, there is a double fear of seeing the country slide further into misery, forcing tens of thousands of Afghans to flee the country, and for Afghanistan to return to a hotbed of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda.
For citizens, access to food, housing, and work will be a priority, while women in particular bear the brunt of the Taliban's repressive social policies, which were prevalent during the movement's rule in the 1990s.
"The consequences of the regime change were immediate and catastrophic," analyst Kate Clark said in a report published by the Afghanistan Analysts Network.
She explained that the military victory came very quickly to the Taliban movement, "which had no plans to run the country without outside help."
"When it was a rebel movement, it imposed taxes on the residents of the areas it controlled, and left public services in the hands of the government and non-governmental organizations," she said, funded largely through international aid.
"She is now in power... at the head of a country with a very low income, when she has to take care of an entire group of the population," which numbers nearly 40 million people. Women are on the front line.
The administration's collapse is the Taliban's biggest problem, as more than 120,000 Afghans were flown out of Kabul airport in the chaotic final weeks of the US presence in late August.
Most of them are people who have worked with foreign countries or companies to manage billions of dollars in aid for 20 years that have largely supported the state budget.
Now, the Taliban government, deprived of this help, can rely only on its own resources and on taxes and customs revenue.
It announced at the end of November that it would pay the salaries of government employees who had not received any salary for months, which discouraged many among them.
“I go to the office every morning, but there is nothing for me to do," said Hazratullah, a senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who preferred not to reveal his full name.
Previously, I was negotiating trade agreements with neighboring countries.
But now we don't have any instructions, nobody knows anything."
In many ministries, few Taliban officials seem to know how to use a computer.
The Taliban is finding it difficult to convince both at home and abroad that it will be more open than it was under its previous rule between 1996 and 2001, when it persecuted women and punished its opponents harshly.
In the cities, at least, the Islamist movement is afforded more freedom: women, for example, are no longer forced to wear the burqa or have a male companion to go out.
But it gives other, more troubling signals: With the exception of the health services, female civil servants have not returned to the office.
The Taliban also announced the reopening of middle and high schools for males, excluding females.
The Taliban invoked saying, "This is for their safety," bearing in mind that the main threat to schools in recent years, namely, the Taliban's attacks, disappeared with their seizure of power.
While regime change troubled educated Afghans in the cities, it brought to many conservative, pro-insurgent rural areas what they had been waiting for 20 years: an end to Western bombing and peace.
race against time
But the respite did not last long, as the Taliban soon found itself facing a bloody insurgency by ISIS militants targeting the Shiite minority.
But the economic situation of the country, which is one of the poorest countries in the world, and mired in the unknown, with the suspension of international aid, is what will determine its future and the future of the Afghans who are now threatened with a major humanitarian crisis.
Humanitarian organizations are sounding the alarm.
For the United Nations, it is a race against time: at the start of the harsh winter, nearly 23 million Afghans, or 55 percent of the population, are at risk of starvation.
With the Taliban taking power, it "killed the chicken that lays the golden eggs," according to Kate Clark, because today its "income is much lower" than the income of the previous government.
Negotiations between the Taliban and foreign countries to return some aid seem difficult and sensitive.
Donor countries want to avoid dealing with an internationally pariah regime, which no country has yet recognized.
The Taliban believes that its victory is clear enough that it will not have to make concessions in return, especially with regard to women's rights.
At the local level, some NGOs have managed to bypass the Taliban's authorities to distribute little aid to those who need it most.
But at the national level, the movement cannot portray an outside power that is bent on controlling all aid, something that worries many donor countries.
All this does not lead to optimism about the future of this country, which has been devastated by a war that has been going on for more than 40 years.
For Clark, "the economic benefits of peace will remain marginal, compared to the harm caused by the loss of foreign aid and the isolation that Afghanistan now faces."
• Donor countries want to avoid dealing with a pariah regime at the international level, which no country has yet recognized. The Taliban believes that its victory is clear enough that it will not have to make concessions in return, especially with regard to women's rights.
• The "Taliban" finds it difficult to convince the inside and the outside that it will be more open than it was under its previous rule between 1996 and 2001, when it persecuted women and punished its opponents harshly.
• For citizens, access to food, housing and work will be a priority, while women bear the brunt of the Taliban's oppressive social policies, which were prevalent during the movement's rule in the 1990s.
• For the West, led by the United States and its NATO allies, there is a double fear of seeing the country slip further into misery, forcing tens of thousands of Afghans to flee the country, and for Afghanistan to return to a hotbed of terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda.
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