In test, U.N. skirts Taliban to pay Afghan health workers

FILE PHOTO: Doctors work at the maternity ward at the Indira Gandhi hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan October 24, 2021. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations has paid nearly $8 million in salaries to some 23,500 health workers across Afghanistan over the past month, bypassing the Taliban-run health ministry in a test case to inject much needed liquidity into a dire Afghan economy.

The U.N. development agency UNDP and the Global Fund health aid organization teamed up to resurrect a program that had been funded by the World Bank until it suspended assistance when the Taliban ousted the Western-backed Afghan government in August.