The UK pledged £105 million per year (£315 million over three years) in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, aiming to alleviate hunger, disease, and suffering among ordinary Afghans.

The author argues this aid risks subsidizing Taliban rule by providing fiscal space for the regime (allowing them to redirect resources to security and patronage), while Taliban policies worsen repression, close girls’ schools, restrict women, and allow terrorist groups to operate.

Aid should continue for basic needs (food, medicine, shelter) but with strict conditions, transparency, third-party monitoring, and measurable benchmarks (e.g., girls’ education, women’s rights, action against terrorism) to ensure it benefits civilians without strengthening the regime.

The £105m a year will be Britain’s long-term humanitarian pledge to Afghanistan. It makes sense to try to avoid further hunger, disease and suffering among the ordinary Afghan people. However, five years into the Taliban’s return to power, the situation of repression has worsened, the humanitarian situation has remained in place and threats from Afghanistan have continued. If these political conditions are not put in place, spending £315m over three years could end up as a subsidy for the failure of the Taliban.

Indirect benefits for the authorities may be provided by humanitarian assistance without it being given to Taliban accounts. External funding comes from sources to finance services that a government can provide. It can allow the Taliban to use their own resources to maintain “government security”, patronise their clientele, and politically survive, while international donors pay for hospitals, nutrition........

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