Achi news desk-
Ottawa has plans to finally stop blocking Canadian development aid to Afghanistan this year.
But by the time its new system is fully operational, the Taliban will rule the country for about three years.
Humanitarian organizations say this is an endless delay for those who need help, especially as other countries have moved more quickly to unblock aid flows.
“It’s very frustrating, if I can put it as nicely as I can,” said Asma Faizi, head of the Afghan Women’s Organization.
Her group supports new Afghans in Canada as well as women living in Afghanistan and in exile in neighboring countries. She also runs an orphanage for girls in Kabul, which has been blocked from Canadian aid since the Taliban took over.
“Canadian organizations that want to work inside Afghanistan are ready, willing and able to work. But they are prohibited,” said Faizi.
As written in the law, aid workers are subject to criminal prosecution if they pay taxes on labor or goods to Afghanistan’s Taliban government.
This action would amount to providing financial support to an entity that Canada lists as a terrorist organization.
The United States, Australia, the European Union and the United Kingdom have all created exceptions to their terrorism laws until February 2022 to allow aid to flow – some six months after the Taliban took full control.
In June of that year, a cross-party committee of MPs called on Ottawa to follow suit.
Since then, Afghanistan has faced a worsening humanitarian crisis caused by natural disasters, widespread food insecurity and economic collapse, with the international community largely shunning the current government.
The UN stated that 23.7 million people in the country currently need humanitarian assistance.
Last June, the parliament passed a bill that enacted a sweeping exemption from terrorist financing laws for humanitarian workers who provide life-saving assistance in response to emergency situations.
She also committed to Ottawa eventually creating an approval process for development workers, such as those building schools, to apply for exemptions to terrorism laws.
For World Vision Canada, the delay in establishing this process means continuing health and nutrition work in Afghanistan on a humanitarian basis but delaying development projects aimed at advancing women’s rights.
The blanket exemption simply isn’t enough for some aid groups, said the group’s policy director, Martin Fisher.
Ottawa has yet to provide clarity on what it defines as humanitarian versus development work. The existing exemption applies only to the former.
“There is still this transfer of responsibility,” he said, which requires aid organizations to determine for themselves what they need to do to protect themselves from prosecution.
He lamented that the government does not use long-standing definitions issued by Global Affairs Canada or the United Nations that spell out the difference in terminology.
Faizi said groups try to address a wide range of issues — from hunger and disease to political oppression — and remain confused about which projects should fit into each category.
For example, she said, vaccinations could be considered long-term preventative aid. But giving can also be seen as a response to a short-term emergency when the health system shrinks and deadly diseases spread.
Mental health programs are usually classified as development work, but Faizi said there is a strong case that halting the trend of youth suicide in Afghanistan could be considered a humanitarian effort.
Faizi also said that by not taking swift action to allow approvals for what she describes as development work, Ottawa appears to be going against its feminist international aid guidelines.
This policy called for flexibility in providing aid and accepting additional risks in order to help women and girls in unstable countries.
“The problem arose when they decided that Canada was going to take this unprecedented route of creating a very complex and bureaucratic process,” she said.
A more flexible approach is needed, Faizi said, and one that recognizes “some of the money” could fall into the wrong hands even as aid organizations try to save lives.
A Public Safety Canada report released last week says “efforts are ongoing to activate the authorization regime.”
He says the process requires sorting out the privacy rules and ensuring that the permit process undergoes an equity analysis.
Ottawa “intends to launch this regime by spring 2024 and will work to achieve full operational capability by the end of 2024,” the report said.
The spokesperson for the department asked for more details that applications will be accepted in the spring, and “personnel efforts are currently underway to further strengthen the team that administers the regime.”
The process fell behind Ottawa’s own benchmark.
The federal Liberals budgeted $5 million for the just-ended fiscal year to review the permits. Another $11 million was committed to the fiscal year that began this month.
Ontario Senator Ratna Omidwar supported the bill.
She said she is “relieved” that some of the aid is coming as a result of the humanitarian exemption, but hopes Ottawa will move quickly to ensure more organizations can help.
“I’m concerned about the amount of time it’s taking us to develop the systems and protocols,” Omidvar said.
“Whenever safety and public safety are involved, things will take longer for the smaller fish – always.”
Canadians have a special duty to the Afghan people, the senator said — and especially to women, after two decades of Ottawa helping train teachers, journalists and politicians.
“Everything fell off the cliff” when the Taliban took over, she said.
“Canadians need to understand, accept and admit that we were complicit in all of this.”
Omidbar said the Afghans feel betrayed and live behind “virtual bars”. Women are unable to go to the park without a male guardian and take great risks to continue their education online.
“Using the word ‘tragedy’ comes easily, but it is an abdication of our responsibility for Afghanistan,” she said.
Canada is ignoring the thousands of Afghans who have immigrated here since then but have connections, skills and passion for their homeland, she said.
Afghan Canadians can help draw the world’s attention to their homeland, she added, and improve the living conditions of those trapped under Taliban rule.
“I don’t believe we can change history,” she said.
“But we can be at the front of the line in terms of aid, humanitarian and developmental.”
Aid groups trying to support people in Afghanistan are at the forefront of procedural change that, once it eventually takes place, could make humanitarian work easier elsewhere.
Fisher noted that the permit process may come into play when Canadian groups seek to respond to crises in other regions run by terrorist organizations, such as Yemen and the Gaza Strip.
“The world is too messy for bureaucratic hurdles,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on April 27, 2024.
