United Nation, April 1: Forty-one donors pledged more than 2.44 billion U.S. dollars for the humanitarian response in Afghanistan and neighboring countries, a top UN official announced Thursday."We count on you to disburse your generous pledges as quickly as possible," said Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Joyce Msuya in a statement.The announcement means the 4.4-billion-dollar appeal for the 2022 Afghanistan humanitarian response plan is now more than 50 percent funded.Before the pledging conference, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the Afghanistan plan was less than 13 percent funded.The biggest donor on Thursday was the United States with a pledge of 512 million dollars, followed by Britain (374 million dollars), Germany (219 million dollars), and China (200 million dollars).Msuya expressed the hope that donors would exceed the commitments made at Thursday's conference and continue supporting the humanitarian response in Afghanistan, the UN Central Emergency Response Fund and the hundreds of millions of people in other crises worldwide.The conference was held virtually by the United Nations, Britain, Germany and Qatar.Source: Xinhua
