The United Nations humanitarian chief will visit Afghanistan in the coming weeks to meet the highest possible officials within the Taliban-led administration after it banned female aid workers, a senior U.N. official said on Thursday.
The news of Martin Griffiths's trip came a day after the U.N. said some "time-critical" programs in Afghanistan had temporarily stopped and warned many other activities will also likely need to be paused because of the ban.
"We regret to see that there is already an impact of this decision on our programs," Ramiz Alakbarov, U.N. humanitarian aid coordinator in Afghanistan, told reporters in New York.
Alakbarov said that the humanitarian needs in Afghanistan were "enormous," and the U.N. was committed to staying and delivering help. He said the U.N. was actively working on getting the ban reversed.
The Taliban-led administration announced the ban on female aid workers on Saturday. It follows a ban imposed last week on women attending universities. In addition, girls were stopped from attending high school in March.
Separately, 12 countries and the EU jointly called on the Taliban this week to reverse the ban on female aid workers and allow women and girls to return to school.
The foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain, the United States and the EU issued the statement.
The Taliban seized power in August last year. They largely banned girls' education when last in power two decades ago but said their policies had changed. The Taliban-led administration has not been recognized internationally.
