Additional Context: Although Afghanistan has managed to maintain macroeconomic stability and a stable currency, declining aid and formal foreign exchange inflows have left the central bank with fewer U.S. dollars in reserve. The central bank uses those dollar reserves to actively manage the value of the afghani, by injecting dollars into the market as necessary, while encouraging consumers to use afghanis over dollars. With fewer reserves to draw on, the currency's stability now hinges on whether aid, exports, and remittances keep flowing in consistently, and whether the central bank can maintain its market interventions such as prohibitions on outflows of foreign currency, and promotion of afghani use in transactions, among others. If these interventions falter, the afghani could depreciate and thus amplify an inflationary crisis in a country that is increasingly dependent on imports, which have grown 58% in the three-year period since 2023 and make up 90% of all anual trade circulation growth, compounding stagnated export capacity, which would weaken the long-term, structural prospects of economic recovery.

Devex Researcher Note: While the U.S. is not specifically mentioned as responsible for the cuts in the source document, aid disbursements from the U.S. to Afghanistan dropped by nearly half between 2023 and 2024, and ultimately fell significantly more after the 2025 aid cuts. Humanitarian funding from the U.S. decreased from $728.6 million in 2024 to $243.2 million in 2025, with nothing pledged in 2026 — this alone accounts for 51.7% of the total reduction in humanitarian funds in this three-year period.