KABUL, March 20 (Reuters) – A drop in donor funding could push parts of Afghanistan into famine this year, the World Food Programme said on Monday, adding that up to 9 million Afghans could be left without food aid after it had already had to slash rations.

A huge humanitarian aid package after the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021 – leading to foreign governments cutting development funding and imposing sanctions – helped avert a widespread famine then, but now those fears are rising again.

“Because of that, we’ve been able to stave off famine,” WFP Afghanistan Country Director Hsiao-Wei Lee told Reuters. “If we are not able to provide that (again), we could face the worst-case scenario.”

The WFP is currently short of $93 million for March and April, causing it to reduce rations to 4 million Afghans to 50% of what they need. Another 9 million people will lose access to food aid entirely next month if it does not receive funding commitments in coming weeks.

The WFP comments are one of the first concrete signs after international officials warned that growing global emergencies and challenging economic conditions, combined with Taliban restrictions on women, could lead donors to pull back.

The restrictions have drawn widespread international criticism. The Taliban administration says it respects women’s rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law and are working on guidelines to clarify the rules on female NGO workers.

Lee also described the Taliban authorities’ decision to ban most Afghan women from working at NGOs in December as a “devastating blow”.

“Against the backdrop of the ban, partners are continuing to review their funding to operations in Afghanistan and there could be a decline in funding,” she said.

“It’s very much in the back of everybody’s minds and we just need to continuously remind ourselves that humanitarian funding … does need to remain apolitical,” she said, adding that many of WFP’s beneficiaries were women and children.

She also pointed to the parallel crises that have unfolded in Ukraine and around the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

Lee said the WFP was monitoring to ensure women were still reaching sites where it distributed cash and food and that authorities had granted exemptions in some areas to allow female NGO workers.

The WFP was turning beyond its traditional major donors, Lee said, to ask countries in the region and private organisations to help it raise the $800 million needed for the next six months.

According to U.N. finance records, the WFP received around $1.7 billion last year for Afghanistan from dozens of governments and institutions. Its major donors included the United States, Britain and Germany. The records did not indicate which donors had reduced funding this year.

The three-day exhibition, held at a hotel in Dubai and organised by the United Nations Development Programme and the Afghan Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AWCCI), began on Thursday and includes 26 female-run businesses.

Due to visa and travel restrictions, most business owners joined via video link from the Afghan capital, where they said some restrictions on women in public life as well as the country’s struggling economy were hampering their businesses.

Rayhana Karim, from the AWCCI, said at the exhibition in Dubai that they were working to create a brand for products, labelling them “Made by Afghan Women”, to reach consumers abroad wanting to support women’s rights.

“The end-consumers in Europe, the United States and the UAE, they want to support Afghan women, we need to provide them with an opportunity,” Karim told Reuters.

“You are supporting an Afghan woman when buying a quality product … and you are enabling her to stand on her own two feet, to gain financial independence and to start to have a seat at the table.”

The International Labour Organization recently estimated that 25% of women’s jobs had disappeared since the Taliban took over as foreign forces withdrew in 2021. Many women, they noted, had turned to home-based businesses, which had stopped the female employment figures falling further.

The country’s economy has been severely hampered after foreign governments froze central bank assets and enforced sanctions on the banking sector.

The Taliban administration has banned many female NGO workers and some Taliban-run ministries do not allow female staff to work in their offices. Some, including the Taliban’s acting commerce minister, have said they support female-led businesses.

The businesswomen involved in the expo said they would not give up.

“We lost our hope when Afghanistan collapsed … but Afghan women are fighters, we will struggle and fight. We will never allow losing our business to happen,” said Ziagul Jahani, who produces handmade clothes and carpets from central Parwan province.

KABUL, March 18 (Reuters) – The U.N. World Food Programme has been forced to cut rations to 4 million Afghans this month, it said in a statement late on Friday, due to a funding shortfall in the midst of the country’s severe humanitarian crisis.

“Due to funding constraints, at least four million people will receive just half of what they need to get by in March,” the statement said, adding the U.N. food agency urgently needs $93 million in funding to reach 13 million people in Afghanistan in April.

Since the Taliban took over in 2021 the already poor country has plunged deeper into economic crisis and foreign governments cut development funding and enforced sanctions on the banking sector.

Some officials, including from the United Nations, have expressed concerns that donors would pull back on the country’s huge humanitarian aid programme after a series of restrictions on women the Taliban administration put in place last year, including barring most Afghan female non-government organisation staff from work in December.

The reason for the World Food Programme’s March funding shortfall was not immediately clear.

The drop in rations comes at the end of a particularly harsh, deadly winter when many families have depleted their food stores and before the next harvest season around May.

The United Nations estimated that around 90% of Afghans cannot afford enough food.