The Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in a report said that the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) blocked DAB from accessing its assets held in U.S. accounts, and international donors—including the U.S. government—and aid organizations suspended their funding and programming activities in Afghanistan. As a result, Afghanistan fell into economic and humanitarian crises.

SIGAR said: “Since August 2021, using international donor contributions, the UN has purchased, transported, and transferred at least $2.9 billion in cash for use in Afghanistan. The US is the largest international donor to Afghanistan, having provided about $2.6 billion in funding to the UN, other public international organizations (PIOs), and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Afghanistan since August 2021.”

The report added that to alleviate the crises, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls issued seven General Licenses between November 2021 and February 2022 to clarify the sanctions regime and to allow international donors and aid organizations to resume humanitarian and development assistance in Afghanistan.

“Because private Afghan banks and money exchangers typically do not hold large amounts of afghanis (Afghanistan’s national currency), which are needed to purchase goods and services in some parts of the country, the banks and money exchangers often use UN-provided U.S. dollars to purchase afghanis from the Taliban-controlled DAB at currency auctions. Consequently, the Taliban have a large supply of U.S. dollars due to DAB exchanging cash for international aid organizations,” the report said.

"The aid given to Afghanistan by the international community in two and a half years has had a significant impact on the exchange rate and the stability of the exchange rate," Mir Shekib Mir, an economic analyst, told TOLOnews.

"Unfortunately, due to the political complications, Da Afghanistan Bank does not have a relationship with the Ekman Group, which is a committed institution consisting of seventy financial units, and the relations between the Central Bank of Afghanistan and other banks in the world are still suspended," Seyar Quraishi, another economic analyst, told TOLOnews.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Economy said that world aid has been able to reduce economic problems in the past two years, but there is a need to increase aid in the development sector.

Abdul Latif Nazari, the deputy minister of Economy, referring to DAB said that this bank operates independently.

Nazari said: "The aid of the international community in the last two and a half years was not enough, but it has been effective, since the system of the Islamic Emirate is an independent system, so all departments, including DAB, operate independently and are not affected by any trend."

SIGAR added that in January 2022, to address Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, the UN made its largest appeal for aid for a single country, requesting $4.4 billion to assist over 22 million Afghans.