 My name is Kani Wignarajah and I'm the UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific and the UN Assistant Secretary General. And I'm here visiting the US Institute of Peace to have discussions on Afghanistan, looking at the current situation and the future engagement of the UN and UNDP in this country. So UNDP has just completed a socioeconomic analysis. We do this annually. This is our 2023 analysis that shows that while there has been some part of the Afghan economy that has stabilized, this doesn't mean that poverty has reduced. In fact, we're seeing increasing levels of poverty now close to 69% across Afghanistan. And what a key part of this is households going into increasing debt. This is a big shift also, even from last year, where households are selling off their assets to just keep up with increasing prices which their incomes just cannot keep up with. So to me, when you have a situation where there is not just a national economic issue but locally economies are crumbling, then you've got to look at building back the resilience of local markets. And that's in Afghanistan a large part of that is run by micro and small enterprises. So for UNDP, a critical part of our efforts in Afghanistan this year and next year is to look at women-owned businesses, women in trade and business, and support them directly. Every woman in Afghanistan that we support, 65,000 of them employ at least five or six other women or family members, and then they each feed and take care of a household of 10. So this is a way at least to keep that resilience going in these communities. The UN stays and delivers no matter how tough the situation is. And in different parts of the world we have to work in countries that have state authorities that are not recognized by the member states of the General Assembly. So this is not new to us. For us the primary issue is how do you engage directly with people and support people to get on with their lives. So improving their choices, their opportunities, this is going to be the way forward. But also a big issue here is that an authority that does not recognize the rights and space of women and girls to earn, to learn, to get on with their lives. That is a huge issue. That's half the population of a country. That's a billion dollar loss to the economy. So whether you look at it from a human rights point of view, a justice and equality point of view, or for an economic point of view, it just doesn't work. So this is a daily conversation and negotiation of increasing a very principled stand that the UN brings to the table, which is that women must have the same equal rights as men. I think with the wars in Ukraine, with everything that's going on in the Middle East, I think you're seeing a huge drop off, not just of development assistance, but also of humanitarian assistance. And this is a reality. Afghanistan is already seeing a drawdown of some of those funds that it was coming to it. And so the question for us is how do you do more with less? You have to look at areas where your investment is giving you a higher return. And to me, investing in girls and women has always been a way to go and to improve the return on that investment.