COVID-19 has constrained many of the ongoing SDG-readying support provided to the Government of Afghanistan and may have major implications for judicious and long-term development policymaking and programming that are needed to achieve the priority SDG targets in Afghanistan.

It is also important that Nepal's central as well as provincial governments extend support, both financial and moral, to pandemic-affected Nepali citizens, especially to the foreign returnees, to capitalize on their skills and expertise which they have gained from overseas employment.

The number of Afghan civilians killed and injured in the conflict has failed to slow since the start of intra-Afghan peace talks, although the overall civilian casualty figure for the first nine months of 2020 dropped by around 30 percent compared to the same period in 2019.

The word “church” is used by the Government but not “masjid”, “temple” or “mandir”, much like the duplicitous exclusion of non-Christian organisations in many “inter-faith services”. Is this an expression of indifference, intolerance, non-recognition or contempt for non-Christian faiths by an Afro-Christian-led Government? In an ethnically-plural society like ours, “church” cannot be used as a generic term. It connotes exclusion and discrimination.