By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The United Nations said&nbsp;on Wednesday that&nbsp;some&nbsp;"time-critical"&nbsp;programs&nbsp;in&nbsp;Afghanistan&nbsp;have temporarily stopped and warned many other activities will also likely need to be paused because of a&nbsp;ban&nbsp;by the Taliban-led administration on&nbsp;women&nbsp;aid&nbsp;workers.
U.N.&nbsp;aid&nbsp;chief Martin Griffiths, the heads of&nbsp;U.N. agencies and several&nbsp;aid&nbsp;groups said&nbsp;in a joint statement that&nbsp;women's "participation in&nbsp;aid&nbsp;delivery is not negotiable and must continue," calling on the authorities to reverse the decision.
"Banning&nbsp;women&nbsp;from humanitarian work has immediate life-threatening consequences for all Afghans. Already,&nbsp;some&nbsp;time-critical programmes have had to stop temporarily due to lack of female staff," read the statement.
"We cannot ignore the operational constraints now facing us as a humanitarian community," it said. "We will endeavour to continue lifesaving, time-critical activities ... But we foresee that many activities will need to be paused as we cannot deliver principled humanitarian assistance without female&nbsp;aid&nbsp;workers."
The&nbsp;ban&nbsp;on female&nbsp;aid&nbsp;workers&nbsp;was announced by the Islamist Taliban-led administration on Saturday. It follows a&nbsp;ban&nbsp;imposed last week on&nbsp;women&nbsp;attending universities. Girls were stopped from attending high school in March.
"No country can afford to exclude half of its population from contributing to society," said&nbsp;the statement, which was also signed by the heads of UNICEF, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, the&nbsp;U.N. Development Programme, and the&nbsp;U.N. high commissioners for refugees and human rights.
Separately, 12 countries and the EU jointly called on the Taliban&nbsp;to reverse the&nbsp;ban&nbsp;on female&nbsp;aid&nbsp;workers&nbsp;and allow&nbsp;women&nbsp;and girls to return&nbsp;to school.
The statement was issued by the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain, the United States and the EU.
The&nbsp;ban&nbsp;on female&nbsp;aid&nbsp;workers&nbsp;"puts at risk millions of Afghans who depend on humanitarian assistance for their survival," the statement said.
Four major global groups, whose humanitarian&nbsp;aid&nbsp;has reached millions of Afghans, said&nbsp;on Sunday that they were suspending operations because they were unable to run their&nbsp;programs&nbsp;without female staff.
The&nbsp;U.N. statement said&nbsp;the&nbsp;ban&nbsp;on female&nbsp;aid&nbsp;workers&nbsp;"comes at a time when more than 28 million people in&nbsp;Afghanistan&nbsp;... require assistance to survive as the country grapples with the risk of famine conditions, economic decline, entrenched poverty and a brutal winter."
The&nbsp;U.N. agencies and&nbsp;aid&nbsp;groups - which included World Vision International, CARE International, Save the Children U.S., Mercy Corps and InterAction - pledged to "remain resolute in our commitment to deliver independent, principled, lifesaving assistance to all the&nbsp;women, men and children who need it."
The Taliban&nbsp;seized power in August last year. They largely&nbsp;banned education of girls when last in power two decades ago but had said&nbsp;their policies had changed. The Taliban-led administration has not been recognised internationally.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Eric Beech and Grant McCool)

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U.N. halts some programs in Afghanistan after ban on women aid workers