for the payment of civil servants, including nurses and teachers, the freezing of afghan assets, has created a liquidity crisis in the banking system and this is a western made policy catastrophe. i m afraid it doesn t take much creativity, it just takes clarity and for sight and some strength and what needs to happen immediately is not just more aid, we need to turn on the economic taps that not just civil servants get paid but they can actually catch the money that goes into their bank accounts which at the moment they cannot do. and we are in the bizarre situation where there s more security in afghanistan for our staff than probably for 20 or 30 years, but actually the ability of us to do our work is impossible. i would say that we are running up an escalator that is going down very fast. while we can do more, the economic situation is so bad that the overall situation is getting worse. all right. stay with us. next on gaps, we will switch
international food insecurity standard level 4, level 5 is famine. the reason is very simple, after the pull out in august, the economy was frozen. 40% of the economy was government led international aid that paid salaries, that s been stopped, another probably 20% was the war economy. the end of international support for the payment of civil servants, including nurses and teachers, the freezing of afghan assets, has created a liquidity crisis in the banking system and this is a western made policy catastrophe. i m afraid it doesn t take much creativity, it just takes clarity and foresight and some strength, and what needs to happen immediately is not just more aid, we need to turn on the economic taps that not just civil servants get paid but they can actually cash the money