U.S. taxpayers spent more than $145 billion on building an economy in Afghanistan but on Monday, less than a month after American troops left the country, a senior humanitarian official is warning that the state is on the brink of financial collapse.
The alarm will raise fresh questions about the way that vast amounts of U.S. cash were spent on the project of nation building.
'If the economy collapses, even the most basic services will no longer function, and humanitarian needs will soar even higher,' said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council who previously served as the U.N.'s most senior humanitarian official, during a visit to Kabul.
'Dealing with the liquidity crisis is critical as aid organisations seek to scale up to meet urgent humanitarian needs.
'We are in a race against the clock to save lives before the harsh winter arrives and temperatures drop to as low as -20 Celsius.'
It was not meant to be like this. Successive American administrations spent hundreds of millions of dollars building a new Afghanistan state, complete with what was supposed to be a sustainable economy.
Men browse through cushions and carpets at a temporary second-hand market in Kabul's Chaman-e-Huzuri neighbourhood on September 16, 2021. Dire warnings that Afghanistan's economy is on the brink of collapse will raise fresh questions about how the U.S. spent $145 billion on building a new Afghan state only for it to stumble once foreign end was cut off
Women in burqas shop at a stall selling second-hand items at a market in Kabul
Figures collected by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction show Washington alone spent $145 billion on rebuilding the country, on top of $837 billion in military support.
'When you look at how much we spent and what we got for it, it's mind-boggling,' a U.S. Defense Department official told SIGAR in a report published last month.
Critics say the aid paid for infrastructure, such as roads and health facilities, but did not build a vigorous private sector.
Now that donor governments have turned off aid payments to the country's new Taliban rulers, there is nothing left, according to Salma Alokozai, who worked for the Kabul government's finance and education ministries until its fall last month.
'When aid was there, we were
