THERE are ominous signs that Afghanistan is heading for a humanitarian catastrophe. As angry crowds queue up outside banks with empty coffers, food inflation is going through the roof for a population of nearly 18m, with 95pc of households not having enough to eat, according to the World Food Programme. UN Secretary General António Guterres at a high-level ministerial conference in Geneva last month warned of a `serious possibility` of an economic collapse if the international community did not come to the rescue of an impoverished Afghan population. UN Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths described the situation in Afghanistan as `very dire`.

Unfortunately however, despite pledges by international donors of more than $1bn in humanitarian assistance, there is no indication of any aid coming to Afghanistan any time soon. There is a reason why the international community has been reluctant to come forward in aid of the Afghan people; and it is political. Despite clarion calls for urgent humanitarian assistance, the international community is taking its time to debate whether the aid can be leveraged to extract concessions from the hard-line rulers of Afghanistan on the key issues of human rights, women rights and an inclusive government. Given the Afghan Taliban`s intransigence to deliver on their Doha commitments, the second most important question before the donors is to find a mechanism to deliver aid directly to the Afghan people, instead of routing it through the new rulers.

This brings us to the larger issue: whether or not to engage with the Taliban. Clearly, Pakistan`s calls for the international community to give `time` to the Taliban or `incentivise` them to soften their stand on critical issues of concern, have found little traction with the international community, including Afghanistan`s immediate neighbours. This in itself has created a dilemma for Pakistan convincing a sceptical international community and persuading an ideologically stubborn Taliban to find common ground. But there are some encouraging signs lately that the global community is waking up to the impending crisis in Afghanistan and one after the other, foreign ministers and international aid agencies have begun to interact with the Taliban. The world must realise that an estimated 14m Afghans living below the poverty line, beset by hunger and severe drought, do not have the luxury of waiting for intricate political discussion to find a solution to their plight. Time is of the essence. The humanitarian crisis cannot be allowed to turn into chaos.