IG Releases Report On NGO Funds
A new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has exposed serious flaws in how billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been spent in Afghanistan since the Taliban took control in 2021. The report highlights a disturbing lack of oversight by the State Department and the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), revealing that American funds have flowed through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with little accountability—creating ample opportunity for fraud, waste, and even Taliban interference.
At the heart of the issue is the way U.S. aid has been delivered. With American personnel no longer on the ground in Afghanistan, agencies like USAID and the State Department have relied on Public International Organizations (PIOs) to distribute aid. However, SIGAR found that these organizations were often allowed to operate without formal agreements requiring oversight. In some cases, recipients outright refused site visits from American officials, making it nearly impossible to verify how the money was being used.
A particularly glaring example involved the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which received USAID funding in 2024 for a water, sanitation, and hygiene project in Afghanistan. USAID never conducted a site visit to verify UNICEF’s work. But when the inspector general’s office did, it uncovered multiple issues that had gone unreported. If USAID had performed even the most basic level of oversight, it could have caught and corrected these problems early.
Another alarming case involved the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs/Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, which funded demining programs but failed to ensure that it could monitor their progress. One of its beneficiaries, the UN Mine Action Service, refused to allow site visits, and at one point, it even halted operations due to Taliban interference—without notifying the State Department for months.
Perhaps most concerning is the fact that the State Department has no formal requirement for PIOs to report instances of “diversion”—a term encompassing fraud, abuse, coercion, corruption, and aid being redirected to groups like the Taliban. While USAID was supposed to enforce such reporting, SIGAR found that diversion clauses were inconsistently included in contracts. Without these measures, the U.S. government has no way of knowing the extent to which taxpayer dollars are being misused or funneled to bad actors.
The lack of transparency extends to the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), which oversees drug enforcement and justice programs in Afghanistan. When asked in 2023 and early 2024 if it had encountered any aid diversion, INL claimed to have no knowledge of such incidents. Yet, months later, it provided SIGAR with a 2023 report detailing eight instances of Taliban interference, which it had known about since late 2022. No explanation was given for the delay in disclosing this information.
Beyond fraud and mismanagement, the report also detailed direct Taliban involvement in U.S.-funded aid distribution. In 2024, the Taliban pressured a U.S.-funded NGO to provide them with lists of aid recipients and allow them to decide who would benefit. The Taliban also forced the suspension of mental health services and a female youth center—demonstrating how extremist control over aid distribution can actively harm vulnerable populations.
Given these findings, SIGAR has called on the State Department to take immediate action. The inspector general recommended that all future aid agreements include mandatory site visits and a standardized reporting system for fraud and abuse. It also emphasized the need for third-party monitoring as a safeguard against waste and corruption.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded to the report by announcing that most of USAID’s operations have been dismantled, with remaining programs being transferred to the State Department. The decision follows growing concerns that USAID had become a financial pipeline for questionable international actors rather than a reliable mechanism for humanitarian aid.