Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths: Closing remarks at the High-level Ministerial Meeting on the Humanitarian Situation in Afghanistan, 13 September 2021

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, here and virtually, thank you. I think in gathering here today we have demonstrated the solidarity that is needed with the people of Afghanistan and our determination to support them in this moment of need and trial.

We have taken an important step towards turning those words into action - actions that will come.

More than US$1.2 billion dollars in humanitarian and development aid has been announced today by very generous Member States for the Afghanistan humanitarian crisis. This includes funding for the Flash Appeal that we are here to witness and to launch, but also for the regional response that Filippo [Grandi] spoke about when he talked to us from Kabul.

The UN and our humanitarian partners, and we have heard from many of them, including national and international NGOs, will now move quickly to turn this funding into food, health care, protection for Afghan children, women and men in need. So naturally we ask you to disburse your pledges as fast as possible.

The funding will throw a lifeline to Afghans who lack those services, to the small children that Henrietta Fore of UNICEF spoke of, who face the risk of acute malnutrition, to the many women and girls who could lose their access to reproductive health services and much more, as we have discussed.

This is a productive day, but it is far from the end of the journey. Afghanistan faces a long and hard road ahead and this meeting show that we can have solidarity with the Afghan people and that we need to be with them for the long and hard road ahead.