Three months since Kabul fell to the Taliban; the Afghan economy is on the brink of collapse. An acute cash shortage has hamstrung economic activity and sent prices soaring, triggering a food crisis that leaves millions of Afghans at risk.
Desperate families have taken to selling their possessions at the street-side to buy food; migrants fleeing the crisis have flocked to the Iranian and Pakistani borders; hospitals and rural clinics across the country are already overrun with malnourished children whose parents cannot afford food. And things only look set to get worse with the U.N. predicting that up to 23 million Afghans will face crisis levels of food insecurity this winter.
A range of factors contributed to the ensuing crisis. Drought, warfare, and lockdowns had already placed the population under considerable strain, but international sanctions precipitated the cash shortages. With the Taliban takeover, aid payments stopped,…
