The grassroots communities
from tribal regions along the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan have long
remained marginalized due to socio-cultural and geographical factors. The
war on terror further pushed this region into chaos and disorder pushing the
inhabitants further away from their basic rights and security. It was with
this realization that the people have to be empowered to be able to get
their voices to the policy makers and to themselves engage into initiatives
to bringing peace back into their region, a civil society dialogue
initiative was launched by SPADO jointly with the United States Institute of
Peace and WADAN in the Afghanistan.
The initiative started in February 2011 with a training of selected civil
society activists from Afghanistan and Pakistan in dialogue facilitation
skills. The trained group further facilitated a series of dialogues with
representatives of civil society, media, NGO, academia and religious
scholars and government officials from across the border over issues and
prospective solutions of the Pukhtun communities across the Pakistan Afghan
border region. The purpose of the dialogues was to devise community level
action plans and prepare policy recommendations for improving the status of
peace, education and income-generation in these areas. These action plans
and recommendations for policy makers were developed through a research
process that included discussions, interviews, dialogues and meetings with
sector experts over a period of six months. In January - February the action
plans and the policy recommendations were presented to the government
officials, donor agencies, international development organizations and
representatives of diplomatic missions in two national conferences held back
to back in Kabul and Islamabad respectively. The representatives from
national government and national and international development donor
agencies and diplomatic missions pledged to take into consideration the
recommendations put forward by the communities from both sides of the
border.
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