Achi news desk-
Ottawa has plans to end blocking Canadian development aid to Afghanistan this year.
But by the time their new system is fully operational, the Taliban will have been ruling the country for around three years.
Humanitarian organizations say that is endless delays for those who need help, especially as other countries have moved more quickly to unblock aid flows.
“It’s extremely frustrating, if I can put it as nicely as I can,” said Asma Faizi, head of the Afghan Women’s Foundation.
Her group supports newcomers from Afghanistan to Canada as well as women living in Afghanistan and in exile in neighboring countries. It also runs an all-girls orphanage in Kabul, which has been cut off 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 banned,” Faizi said.
As the law is written, aid workers are open to criminal prosecution if they pay taxes on labor or goods to the Afghan Taliban government.
Doing so would be tantamount 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 all created carve-outs to their own terrorism laws until February 2022 to allow aid to flow — about six months after the Taliban took full control.
In June of that year, a multi-party committee of Members of Parliament 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 as the international community largely ignores the current government.
The United Nations has determined that 23.7 million people in the country are currently in need of humanitarian assistance.
Last June, the Senate passed a bill that enacted a blanket exemption to terrorist financing laws for humanitarian workers who provide life-saving assistance in response to emergencies.
He also committed to Ottawa eventually creating a licensing process for development workers, such as those building schools, to apply for exemptions to terrorism laws.
For World Vision Canada, the delay in establishing that process has meant proceeding with health and nutrition work in Afghanistan on a humanitarian basis but delaying development projects aimed at promoting women’s rights.
The general exemption is not enough for some support groups, said the group’s policy director, Martin Fischer.
Ottawa has yet to provide clarity on what it defines as humanitarian work versus development. The exception already in place only applies to the former.
“This responsibility still exists,” he said, which requires aid organizations to decide for themselves what they need to do to protect themselves from being sued.
He lamented that the government does not use long-standing definitions published by Global Affairs Canada or the United Nations, which indicate the difference in terminology.
Faizi said groups are trying to tackle a wide spectrum of issues – from hunger and disease to political oppression – and remain confused about which projects should fit into which category.
For example, he said, vaccinations could be considered a long-term preventative aid. But their provision could also be seen as a response to a short-term crisis as the health system buckles and deadly illnesses spread.
Mental health programs are usually categorized as development work, but Faizi argued that there is a strong case that curbing youth suicide in Afghanistan could be considered a humanitarian effort.
Faizi also said that by failing to take swift action to grant permits for what he defines as development work, Ottawa appears to be going against its own feminist international aid guidelines.
That policy called for flexibility in providing aid and for accepting more 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,” he said.
A more flexible approach is needed, Faizi says, and one that recognizes “some of the money” could fall into the wrong hands even as aid organizations try to save lives.
A report from Public Safety Canada published last week says that “efforts continue to implement the authorization procedure.”
He says the process requires sorting out privacy rules and ensuring the license process passes equity analysis.
Ottawa “plans to launch this system by spring 2024 and will work towards achieving full operational capacity by the end of 2024,” the report reads.
When asked for more details, a spokesperson for the department said that applications will be accepted in the spring, and that “staffing efforts are currently underway to further boost the administration team.” the order.”
The process has fallen behind Ottawa’s own benchmark.
The federal Liberals budgeted $5 million for the fiscal year that ended to vet the licenses. Another $11 million was committed for the fiscal year that began this month.
Sen. recommended. Ontario Ratna Omidvar in favor of the measure.
He said it’s a “relief” that some help is arriving as a result of the humanitarian exemption, but he hopes Ottawa will move quickly to ensure more organizations can help.
“I’m concerned about how long it’s taking us to develop the systems and the protocols,” Omidvar said.
“Whenever public safety is in the mix, things will take longer for the smaller fish – always.”
Canadians have a special duty to the people of Afghanistan, the senator said – and especially women, after two decades of Ottawa helping to train teachers, journalists and politicians.
“Everything fell off the cliff” when the Taliban took over, he said.
“Canada needs to understand, accept and acknowledge that we are part of all this.”
Omidvar said Afghans feel betrayed and live behind “virtual bars.” Women cannot go to a park without a male guardian and they take great risks to continue their education online.
“Using the word ‘tragedy’ becomes easy, but that abdicates our responsibility to Afghanistan,” he said.
Canada is ignoring the thousands of Afghans who have immigrated here since then but have connections, skills and passion for their homeland, he said.
Afghan Canadians could help turn the world’s attention to their homeland, he added, and improve living conditions for those trapped under Taliban rule.
“I don’t believe we can change history,” he said.
“But we can be at the forefront of aid, humanitarian and developmental.”
Aid groups trying to support people in Afghanistan are at the forefront of procedural change that, once it is eventually in place, could facilitate humanitarian work elsewhere.
Fischer noted that the permit process could come into play as Canadian groups try to respond to crises in other regions run by terrorist groups, such as Yemen and the Gaza Strip.
“The world is too messy for bureaucratic obstacles,” he said.
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on April 27, 2024.
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