REFLECTING ON PEACE PRACTICE PROJECT Case Study Cooperation For Peace and Unity, Afghanistan Sue Williams October 2000

This document was developed as part of a collaborative learning project directed by CDA. It is part of a collection of documents that should be considered initial and partial findings of the project. These documents are written to allow for the identification of cross-cutting issues and themes across a range of situations. Each case represents the views and perspectives of a variety of people at the time when it was written. These documents do not represent a final product of the project. While these documents may be cited, they remain working documents of a collaborative learning effort. Broad generalizations about the project’s findings cannot be made from a single case. CDA would like to acknowledge the generosity of the individuals and agencies involved in donating their time, experience and insights for these reports, and for their willingness to share their experiences. Not all the documents written for any project have been made public. When people in the area where a report has been done have asked us to protect their anonymity and security, in deference to them and communities involved, we keep those documents private.

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BACKGROUND TO THE CONFLICT IN AFGHANISTAN1 Afghanistan: Endless War in a Fragmented Society Although various peace initiatives have been undertaken by parties outside Afghanistan (for example, the UN, the Organization of Islamic Conference, and Pakistan) as well as by parties within the country, none of these have been able to achieve the involvement of all contending parties or an agreement lasting more than a few weeks. Efforts by UN bodies and NGOs are aimed at strengthening the peace process and enhancing stability by providing an alternative to conflict, through implementation of programmes and incentives for rehabilitation and reconstruction at the district level without waiting for a permanent solution. For several decades Afghanistan was an important pawn of the superpowers. For strategic reasons both the United States and the Soviet Union gave the country massive amounts of primarily military aid. After the end of the Cold War both countries lost interest in Afghanistan. Since then, the fragmentation of Afghan society and newly emerged regional interests have thwarted all efforts to achieve national unity and led to the continuation of the seemingly endless civil war. After the establishment of political parties in Kabul in the early 1960s, Afghanistan experienced a series of often violent changes in government. In 1973 Daoud Khan, cousin of King Zaher Shah, overthrew his kinsman in a coup and abolished the monarchy. In 1978 military officers allied with pro-Soviet communist factions took power in a coup and sparked a resistance movement. What in many areas began as a spontaneous social protest came increasingly under the leadership of Islamic leaders, who had established bases in Pakistan. As this resistance grew, Soviet intervention became more direct, culminating in the invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. The Islamic resistance (the mujahedin) spread and began to receive support from sources as diverse as the US, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China. Massive warfare ensued, with the US and other Western powers providing the bulk of the military support to the anti-Soviet cause. Resistance remained fragmented throughout the war, however, with infighting among resistance groups not uncommon. After February 1989, Soviet troops withdrew under UN-mediated accords signed in Geneva by the Afghan regime, the Soviet Union, Pakistan and the US. Afghan resistance parties had not taken part in the negotiations, rejected the accords and continued to oppose the Najibullah regime. The mujahedin started to form more consolidated groups, but these mainly served to aggravate ethnic and regional polarization. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ethnic Uzbek militia of General Dostum, which had formerly favoured the regime, allied with the mujahedin and Najibullah was ousted. Two successive interim governments have since been established, each of which intended to implement elections. The civil war continued, however, and the former pattern of communists versus mujahedin was transformed into a conflict along largely

1 This analysis has been provided by the European Centre for Conflict Prevention, through its website: http://www.oneworld.org/euconflict/guides/surveys/af.htm

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ethnic lines. These ethnic divisions have often reinforced ideological differences between traditionalists and more radical Islamic groups, as well as between Sunni Muslims and the Shia minority. A new political movement of Islamic students, the Taliban, emerged in late 1994. Consisting of Afghans raised in exile and trained in ultra-conservative Islamic seminaries in Pakistan, this movement sparked the resentment in Pasthun tribes of the corruption of the former mujahedin leaders and the domination of the government by non-Pasthuns. With very little fighting, the Taliban took control over the southern part of the country within a few months, disarming commanders and re-establishing law and order, and applying a strict interpretation of Islamic law. In September 1996 the Taliban captured the capital Kabul and installed their version of Islamic government. The Taliban's restrictive policies, especially concerning women, played a role in preventing most nations from recognizing them as the new and legitimate government of Afghanistan, despite the Taliban’s control of the capital and about nine-tenths of the country's territory and population. In the northern part of the country as well as in Kabul, there is strong opposition to the Taliban. Especially in the North, heavy fighting continues. The war experience has transformed Afghan society in many ways. Since 1973, over one million have died in the fighting, gross violations of human rights have occurred and the country's infrastructure has been completely destroyed. Afghan society has become severely militarized, and half the population has experienced forced migration as a result of the war. The displacement of people has occurred along ethnic lines, further increasing polarization. In the course of the conflict the regional context became even more polarized. The advance of a militant Islamic force backed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia alarmed Russia, Central Asia and Iran, each for somewhat different reasons. Some in the former Soviet republics feared that the Taliban might sweep north of Kabul, intensifying the civil war in Tajikistan and threatening the former Soviet border, now the CIS security border. Iran continues to believe, with many others in the region, that the U.S. is allied with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in an effort to encircle and contain the country. The State Department steadfastly denies these charges both publicly and privately. Russia has declared that the collective security treaty that the five Central Asian states signed with Moscow in 1992 will be immediately activated if the borders of any of these countries are violated by Afghanistan. The Northern resistance alliance is backed by Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Russia. The Taliban is backed by Pakistan, which is accused of providing troops, weapons and military expertise. Conflict Management The regional dimension of the problem is of vital importance. The independence of Central Asia and the opening of its borders has created a system of states that has never before existed. The emergence of ethnically defined sovereign Central Asian states has strengthened ethnic identities in Afghanistan. Competition over control of trade and pipeline routes from Central Asia has also transformed the relations between Iran and Pakistan. At the same time the UN has begun to deal more systematically with the

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regional dimension of the problem, convening a meeting in New York on 18 November 1996 of all states concerned with Afghanistan: the five permanent members of the Security Council, Germany, Japan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, India, Italy, Turkey and the five Central Asian States. Participants in the meeting agreed on the need for a framework to end external interference in Afghanistan and decided to reconvene, perhaps with a higher level of representation. It disagreed, however, on the question of whether to engage or isolate the Taliban. The Taliban challenged the Rabbani government's control of the UN seat of Afghanistan, but the Credentials Committee, spurred by the US, deferred a decision, and the hostilities in Afghanistan were prolonged. In 1997 the UN Security Council adopted a resolution that called for an end to the fighting and the start of a political dialogue aimed at national reconciliation and a lasting political settlement. It also called on the outside parties to stop supplying arms and ammunition to the warring factions and for all Afghan groups to respect human rights and permit the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Reiterating that the continuation of the conflict in Afghanistan provides a fertile ground for terrorism and illegal drug production and trafficking, leading to destabilization in the region and beyond, the Council called upon the leaders of the Afghan parties to halt such activities. The UN Security Council adopted a new resolution on August 28, 1998, with the same message. In October, 1998, the UN refused for the third time to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government and allowed the representative of ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani to keep Afghanistan’s seat in the UN. In October 1997 the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) called for an Afghan peace conference in Jeddah, but received no positive response. The UN Special Mission on Afghanistan continues its efforts to effect an immediate ceasefire and begin negotiations. Future prospects for a peaceful resolution of the civil war have been dimmed by the continuation of foreign military aid to the fighting parties. Hence the UN is changing its strategy in brokering peace by shifting the focus from the warring Afghan factions to other countries of the region with influence in the war-battered country, especially Pakistan and Iran. There is a growing consensus in the international community that neither of the warring factions can win military victory or unite the country's population. And even if the Taliban or the alliance did manage to defeat their opponent, the losing side might well be able to fight a continuing guerrilla war, probably with the help of foreign backers. There are a few positive elements in the situation, however. The convening by the UN of a meeting of regional states and major global political and economic powers has created a framework in which the underlying problems of regional instability and competition can be addressed. The interests of oil companies in the region, while spurring a new level of regional competition, also means that a new source of funding for reconstruction may be available. Thus far there has been little indication that the international community is prepared to offer any alternative to the fighters and opium-growers of Afghanistan. Indeed, in a world beset by donor fatigue it is difficult to envisage yet another massive programme of aid. In this context, the interest of oil companies in Afghanistan might be creatively employed to support peace rather than aggravate conflict. The UN and major states might work through multilateral financial institutions

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to design a public-private partnership for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The key to any such programme would be the creation of institutions to manage funds generated, including rents from pipelines, thus providing some measure of accountability to the Afghan people at large. Such a programme of reconstruction conditional on a UN-mediated agreement would provide the international diplomatic effort with significantly more leverage than it now enjoys. A main concern of the international community is the gross violations of human rights, in particular the rights of women. Amnesty International has recently appealed to economic actors, such as the US oil company Unocal, the Saudi Arabian company Delta Oil and the Argentinian oil company Bridas (which is reportedly competing to build a $2 billion natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan from Central Asia), to use any leverage they have on the Taliban and other groups to command respect for human rights. Amnesty International has also appealed to the international community to ensure that the human rights of all Afghans are not put second to other political and economic strategic interests. Despite the enormous humanitarian emergency in Afghanistan, most of the humanitarian aid provided by governments, UN organizations and NGOs has suffered delays. Because of the intensity of the war and the restrictive policies of the Taliban, international organizations and local and international NGOs are forced to operate from neighbouring countries. Many international NGOs are involved in the repatriation operation from Iran and Pakistan; however, one major obstacle to repatriation is the vast diffusion of landmines. Local NGOs have sprung up as well, among them human rights organizations. At the micro-level many NGOs have developed programmes to allow people from different ethnic groups to work together. Unicef also has several small-scale community-building programmes in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif. Cooperation for Peace and Unity (CPAU) is an Afghan network started in 1996 that aims to raise awareness of peace-building concepts and enhance the capacity for promoting peace within the Afghan community. The main concern of CPAU is to empower development workers to handle conflict issues arising in their work. In cooperation with Responding to Conflict (UK) and the Norwegian Church Committee, CPAU offers training to the field staff of aid agencies. Furthermore, CPAU is committed to advocating peace in Afghanistan and to supporting peace-building within communities. CPAU has 13 member organizations, including 5 UN agencies. The headquarters of CPAU are in Peshawar, Pakistan. The Cooperation Centre for Afghanistan (CCA) is an Afghan NGO based in Pakistan involved mainly with development activities but with an important human rights department as well. The department has close contacts with international human rights organizations and has cooperated with the UN Centre for Human Rights in Geneva. CCA is very concerned about the gross violations of human rights in Afghanistan and in particular the rights of women. The human rights department also promotes the establishment of a National Platform for Human Rights in Afghanistan. Oxfam/UK has been working in Afghanistan since 1991, with a mandate to relieve poverty, distress and suffering among the Afghan population. Since the arrival of the

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Taliban, a large part of the Oxfam programme has been oriented towards advocacy, striving to secure for women the right to education and employment within the context of their cultural and religious values. Oxfam is working closely with the UN and other international NGOs. Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) is engaged in peace-building activities that aim to promote self-awareness among aid agencies (local and international) regarding the impact of their activities on the conflict in Afghanistan. The central objective of NCA is to strengthen the peace-building capacities of Afghan relief workers and their partner organizations. NCA has conducted two workshops with international facilitators to promote peace and to stimulate local participation in peace-building activities. NCA has a joint programme for 'Safe Housing' with UNHCR, aimed at protecting Afghan political refugees. NCA is headquartered in Peshawar, Pakistan. Responding to Conflict, a UK-based NGO, has been working with the Afghan people since 1993, through courses and workshops in the UK and in Afghanistan. RTC is a source of advice for conflict-handling and peace-building expertise for Afghan relief workers. In 1996 and in 1997 RTC facilitated two 'Working with Conflict Training Courses' and a course on 'NGOs and Peace Building in Afghanistan'. The aim of these courses was to explore the main roots of social and political conflict and to identify ways of transforming it. The Afghanistan Peace Association (APA) was founded in the United States in 1989 by a number of Afghans in exile who wanted to form an independent and neutral assembly based on genuine respect for the beliefs and views of the Afghans. APA strives for peace and national unity in Afghanistan, through discussion, understanding and exchange of views, with the goal of banishing war and disarming individuals, factions, ethnic groups and tribes. Other NGOs carrying out prevention or resolution activities relating to the Afghan conflict are the Centre for Preventive Action (USA), The Collaborative for Development Action (USA) and PRIO (Norway). Jan.1999 http://www.oneworld.org/euconflict/guides/surveys/af.htm BACKGROUND TO CPAU: During 1993-96, at a time when the situation in Afghanistan was improving greatly with respect to war and violence, yet did not necessarily seem to be progressing toward peace, a small but growing number of Afghan development and aid workers began seeking ways to help foster peace in their country. Many of them worked in international agencies, or in Afghan NGOs which worked in partnership with international organisations. Indeed, most of them actually lived in Peshawar, Pakistan, where agencies had established headquarters when it seemed impossible to maintain offices within Afghanistan. They continued to work within Afghanistan, as well as with Afghans now in Pakistan.

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Sparked in particular by the attendance of Mohammad Ehsan at the Working with Conflict course2 in 1993, these Afghan development and aid workers began to meet together and talk about forming a network of support to encourage each other to expand their objectives and to try to address the war itself. A workshop in the Swat Valley in 1996 saw the formal inception of Cooperation for Peace and Unity (called CPAU, or sometimes CPU). RELATIONSHIPS / PARTNERSHIPS WITH INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES: CPAU grew out of contact between Afghan aid and development workers and two, somewhat inter-related, conflict-oriented programmes: UK-based Responding to Conflict and US-based Local Capacities for Peace. Many of the early supporters of CPAU were staff of or associated with Norwegian Church Aid, which provided considerable early support in the form of released time and training. These three organisations are seen by CPAU as having been crucial to its development, both operationally and conceptually. It is also important to note the reverse–that CPAU and its members have had a considerable impact on and role in the development of the key organisations which influenced them. There have been good relationships with many other organisations, both Afghan and international, but there have been tensions as well. These have tended to revolve around two issues: 1. Support and Capacity-building International organisations have provided a variety of support, including funding, training opportunities, partnerships, and links to donors. Norwegian Church Aid was the earliest source of support, with several of the founders and prominent members of CPAU being staff of NCA. NCA has also provided funding, including funding for early workshops offered by CPAU, and links into the network of international agencies providing Afghan aid. Key input, — training, concepts, and materials, as well as international solidarity — has come from Responding to Conflict. This began in 1993 (well before the network itself began) and included 6 further members attending RTC’s 10-week Working with Conflict course, and RTC staff acting as partners in facilitating 3 training workshops in nearby Pakistan for Afghan aid and development workers. The Collective for Development action involved CPAU early in the development of its Local Capacities for Peace project and its Do No Harm materials. For its part, CPAU has assisted both international and local organisations, as well as some communities inside3 Afghanistan, in strengthening their capacity to understand and address issues of conflict and aid, through training. In both directions, much has been offered and accepted, yet expectations have always somewhat exceeded results. This is altogether understandable, given the difficulties of the situation, the urgency with which everyone feels it needs to be addressed, and the limitations imposed by organisational and personal evolution as well as competing needs and activities. All of this is exacerbated by a dynamic which may often operate with 2 Working with Conflict is the title of the 11-week international course offered by Responding to Conflict 3 This study will adopt the common short-hand of the region, and refer to activities which occur within the boundaries of Afghanistan as inside.

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networks, a focus on collective and dynamic processes which often exceeds the members’ capacity to involve themselves, and a resulting lack of clarity and specificity in planning detail which can make support difficult and can even appear as a lack of focus. CPAU, the international organisations to whom it looks for support, and the local/international actors who look to it for assistance, all describe a number of unmet expectations over the course of their relationships. They attribute some of these to changes in staff at the policy or headquarters level of international agencies, where a key person who understood and supported a particular way of working has been replaced by someone with other priorities, or to relatively slow development by CPAU, which some of its partners expected to become more autonomous and active by now. The nature and stage of the Afghan conflict has a role in all of this. After years of violent conflict not yet completely resolved, with agencies and much of the population decamping to Pakistan or Iran, with a severe government and a traditional rural population neither of whom is necessarily receptive to peace-building, CPAU members are faced with an almost-impossible task. They are stretched to their limit by the need to summon up, in themselves and others, the dedication and the inventiveness necessary to confront the war in this new way. They do need and expect support. They get some support, but this is limited by other agencies’ own differing priorities, such as reconstruction or primary health-care, as well as by stated mandate and policy, and by the level of conceptual understanding of what peace-building could be in Afghanistan now. In some ways, then, the very conflict which CPAU wishes to address, and its collaborative way of working, both limit the support it can command and its visible effectiveness. 2. Resource people A second area of both support and tension has been the provision and use of resource people. Again, there has been two-way support between CPAU and its partner organisations. CPAU has drawn its resource people from among staff of both local and international agencies. CPAU, in turn, has offered its services to train staff at these agencies, and has helped resource people find opportunities and funds for further international training. This has given CPAU an excellent roster of resource people to draw on, and has benefited the agencies as well through their staff’s enhanced skills, confidence, and prestige. Partner agencies have had mixed feelings about this, often reluctant to release staff time for work on behalf of CPAU, and unsure whether the benefits of advanced training (which they freely acknowledge) outweigh the risk that staff will be drawn further away, or perhaps even remain permanently in Europe or the US. Certainly, this issue has caused tension for both sides. CPAU has been limited in the amount of work it can undertake, with difficulties in making and keeping commitments to those requesting training, because it does not have first priority over the time of most of its trainers. Agencies report that their staff’s loyalties seem sometimes divided between their ‘real’ work and their voluntary assignments with CPAU. 3. Access to key agencies, practitioners, and decision-makers

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CPAU’s original founders, its key membership, decision-makers, and resource people, have been drawn from a broad sweep of local and international agencies. CPAU has inherited and benefited from the credibility these personnel have brought with them. These people have also served as contacts with an even larger pool of agencies whom CPAU can influence to extend aid and development and address conflict, as well as prevent agency interventions from exacerbating conflict. At the same time, these agencies are also key clients, in that they have contracted with CPAU to offer training to their staff and target communities. CPAU sees its membership as being particularly well-placed, as middle-level agency staff, to work with and influence both the grassroots communities and international agencies. UNDERPINNINGS: Values and approach Somewhat unusually, CPAU members agreed very early to statements which described not only their shared vision and mission, but also their values. It may be useful to repeat these below (further detail in Strategic Document, appendix).

Vision: Social justice development and peace building in Afghanistan are promoted and nurtured through greater involvement of Afghans.

Mission Statement:

To work for the creation of an alternative to the war and to lay the foundations for the future development of Afghanistan by building support amongst all Afghans for active involvement in the promotion of social justice, development and peace-building in Afghanistan.

Strategic Aims: 1. To promote peace-building and social justice through strengthening the

role of the aid community, civil society organisations and the public sector in Afghanistan 2. To develop and strengthen the human resources necessary for

development and peace building in Afghanistan and the creation of a functioning and inclusive civil society built upon the participation of all the people of Afghanistan Values: CPAU strongly believes that • Violence is not the solution to any problem. • Participation at all levels, practising mutual respect, constructive

criticism, and provision of equal opportunities to men and women, are the fundamental elements in the affairs of all societies.

• People should have the right to elect their political leadership freely and be allowed to practice differing political and religious beliefs.

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• CPAU is working for a world free of discrimination of any nature, in which everyone has the right to social development, including basic health care and education.

• CPAU believes that everyone has the right to develop their own identity without any fears.

CPAU made several early, significant decisions in principle about how it would work, which have had a crucial impact on CPAU’s development. 1. They decided to focus on local institutions and ordinary people within areas of

Afghanistan accessible to them. This was a conscious decision to avoid Kabul, where everything was politicised, and where they would have been expected to work with urban elites and to take positions on divisive political issues.

2. They also chose not to limit their efforts to Peshawar, where most of their own agencies were based, and additionally prioritised Herat in the west and later Logar in the east. This meant that CPAU’s own activities were immediately based on local realities within Afghanistan, as well as in the international and local aid community based in Pakistan.

3. They decided that everything they did would include a commitment to follow up on continuing needs with the same people, focusing on a few geographical areas. This opened them to working with a variety of organisations active in the region, and again committed them to local understandings of problems, needs, and next steps. However, it also limited the number of areas in which they could feasibly work.

ACTIVITIES: CPAU engages in three broad activities, which it refers to in shorthand as: Working with Conflict, Do No Harm, and peace education. The first is, broadly, conflict resolution/transformation, and more specifically training as provided to them by Responding to Conflict. This is a broad training area, with frequent changes and adaptations both by CPAU and by RTC, but with an approach recognisable to them (and, indeed, to others) as originating with RTC. The Do No Harm activities stem from research, training, and seminars offered by CDA, and recognisably using their approach, as the conflict resolution approach reflects RTC’s. CPAU often, perhaps even normally, provides both types of training in a given workshop. Peace education has been a rather more recent initiative, using materials from various sources, including RTC, UNICEF, Save the Children, and others. The three activities have, in principle, different target audiences and different kinds of objectives. A. Peace education is directed at Afghan teachers, students, and schools in Peshawar, for reasons which have to do with the stages of conflict as well as the particular situation. Within Afghanistan, there is currently no normal system of education at all, as the Taliban will not allow education unless they themselves have devised the curriculum, and they do not regard the curriculum as a high enough priority to give it attention at present. Within Peshawar, there is tremendous interest in and receptivity to peace education, as the exiled/refugee community looks to the possibility of returning home, and compares what it would like for its children’s future with the

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reality it has recently experienced. Peace education would then have a large conceptual element, to help teachers (and, through them, students, school administrations, and families) to visualise peace as a possibility, to see the importance of replacing the culture of war with a culture of peace, and to foster behaviours and attitudes which will in the long term promote peace rather than war. In terms of CPAU’s own stated objectives, this work particularly addresses the mission statement (to work for the creation of an alternative to the war and lay the foundations for the future development of Afghanistan) and the first strategic aim (to build support amongst all Afghans for active involvement in the promotion of development, peace-building and social justice). The peace education work itself consists largely of training of teachers. This is highly intensive, reflecting the commitment of those involved. Following initial training, a group of about 25 teachers (roughly half men, half women, teaching in boys’ and girls’ schools respectively) has continued to meet several times each week for further ‘workshops.’ The teachers thus have the opportunity to continue to learn new ideas, to share problems and offer each other solutions, and to develop a collective sense of development and achievement. CPAU also does direct training of students, with follow-up of course provided by teachers. The other area of activity is the development of materials, much of which is actually done by the Sanyee Institute of Education and Learning. This is important in order to make the teachers’ work possible. B. Do No Harm has two different audiences, with somewhat different needs. The most obvious target is the aid community, based largely in Peshawar (although often working inside Afghanistan), and consisting of both Afghans and expatriates in both international and local organisations. Work with them focuses on the conceptual (what is the impact of aid on conflict situations and local capacities for peace), the analytical (what is the nature of the conflict, which are capacities for peace, and what is the role of aid) and the strategic (how can aid promote capacities for peace and work toward mitigating rather than exacerbating conflict). Increasingly, CPAU has seen that training individuals in this way, then sending them back to ‘untrained' organisations, is much less effective than targeting organisations and individuals in organisational settings. A second audience for this activity is Afghan communities, as beneficiaries/victims of aid. This training necessarily has a somewhat different focus, aiming conceptually to assist communities in understanding the role of aid, analytically to understand the dynamic of forces for peace and war in their own conflict situation, and strategically to empower communities to be active in directing aid and dealing with its impact. This area of work focuses on CPAU’s first and second strategic aims (strengthening the role of the aid community and strengthening human resources and civil society). C. Working with Conflict activities are aimed both at staff of aid and development organisations, and at communities inside. The conceptual focus for both groups is to see the positive as well as negative possibilities of conflict, and to see peace-building after war as a possible useful activity for themselves. Analytically, development workers need not only to understand how to analyse particular conflicts and invent ways to deal with them, but they also need to be able to assist communities in doing this, and do it in an inclusive and participatory way.

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The broad approach is very familiar to development workers, but the kind of analysis and the strategic thinking necessary to enable communities to deal with conflict are new and unfamiliar to them. For communities inside, inclusiveness and managing conflict are both conceptual and strategic needs. Some participatory methodologies are familiar to them, but not at the deep level of analysis necessary, where vastly different experiences and perceptions need to be shared and heard in the form of hard truths andin the context of the evolution of some shared vision and possibility of changes in behaviour and attitude. This area of work targets broad swathes of the mission statement and strategic aims (peace-building, strengthening human resources and civil society participation). ACTUAL ACTIVITIES In reality, apart from the peace education, CPAU generally offers a kind of all-purpose training, with a Do No Harm as well as a Working with Conflict focus, which is not particularly differentiated according to the audience. This has implications, since it is primarily at the conceptual level that the needs of the different target groups coincide, while they diverge both analytically and strategically. As will be seen, CPAU’s impact has largely been at the conceptual level, and this may be one of the reasons. In addition, particular methodologies are likely to be more effective with one audience than another, and this is somewhat obscured by the standardisation of the training. In particular, communities inside (and those who work with them) are likely to need much more emphasis on Freirean and PRA-type analytical approaches, which encourage them to look in detail at their own situation and build an analysis from the ground up, rather than or as well as inductive, theory- and issue-based analysis from the top down. The interplay of local conflicts and national and international structures and systems is complex and often subtle, and the conceptual shorthand which enables trained development workers to grasp the different levels and their relationships is not necessarily familiar to people at grassroots level. A WORD ABOUT GENDER ISSUES CPAU intends to value and respect men and women equally, in an environment in which this is often suspect, and any inclusion or exclusion of women is closely observed and commented on. CPAU has a number of qualified and highly-skilled women among its resource people. It is not allowed to use them in training events inside Afghanistan, nor is it allowed to bring together mixed groups of men and women. One response to this has been to try to do in Pakistan what it cannot do in Afghanistan. There have, therefore, been training events led by women resource people, aimed specifically at women development and aid workers. Peace education is directed at both boys’ and girls’ classes, and the teachers’ group is roughly half men, half women. Peace education materials and the children’s magazine show males and females in a variety of situations and roles.

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Another response has been to engage in the debate, although the debate itself is complex. CPAU consciously tries to discuss and address gender issues in ways which respect differing priorities and perspectives. These include: • Local realities, themselves diverse, from rural to urban, nomadic or settled, and from

a variety of ethnic and cultural perspectives • Local traditions, recognising that these have often been besieged, changed, perhaps

overwhelmed by influences from outside • The influence of the discontinuous history of Afghanistan • Outside influences, including those of the international aid community and the

human rights perspective Faced with these complexities, CPAU is striving to avoid an over-simplified answer, whether ‘local’, ‘Western,’ or ‘Islamic.’ It tries to model/exemplify its own vision through its work and its willingness to engage in inclusive discussion about these issues. It also chooses, out of all the competing perspectives, to prioritise two elements: • Women’s own views and priorities, with the differences stemming from the

preceding kinds of differentiation. • The community’s capacity to analyse its own situation and make decisions about it. This is not an easy position to take up or maintain. It gives CPAU both the opportunity and the obligation to begin with people where they are, and to try to enable them to reconcile their vastly different viewpoints and move on together. IMPACT Overall, CPAU is described as having had a small impact on a specific part of an enormous conflict. It is perceived, by its members and those who have been directly involved in its work as beneficiaries, to have had especially good direct impact on individuals, and to a lesser extent on (some) organisations. It is also perceived to have had a positive if somewhat diffuse impact on the aid community, and a positive impact in the communities inside with which it has worked. Expectations of it are high, and many of those interviewed also reported a feeling that it could have stronger, more direct, and more focused impact. This general summation only really makes sense, however, in its specifics. 1. Peace education, the most recent addition to CPAU’s activities, is not so widely

known in some circles, yet is highly valued where it is known. The trainers and the teachers who work with them are praised as dedicated, well-organised, and skilled, and many examples are given of both direct and indirect impact of their work. These indicators tend to be both behavioural (students resolve their own conflicts, classes analyse and solve problems, schools with peace education are better learning environments) and attitudinal (students take an interest in and some responsibility for the situation in their country, express hopes and visions, and are described by their families as more constructive). Several of the examples cited as impact were indicators of spontaneous replication, (for example, when students saw others fighting in the market, they asked whether their school lacked peace education; and teachers in schools without peace education sought materials to introduce these new ideas in their own classes).

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2. Do No Harm training was cited by some as having been adopted at the policy level as well as the conceptual level by many organisations within the aid community (though there were more questions about whether this had actually changed practice). There were direct indicators (materials used in planning and assessment) as well as indirect (greater sensitivity to consequences of aid), and again some spontaneous replication (concepts in common currency even among those not directly trained in this area). CPAU was regarded as having good access within the NGO community, and being able to draw a diverse aid community for workshops. The trainings were regarded as well-organised, varied, and relevant, though a bit light on analysis. The other major criticism in this area was the limitation in training capacity, since there were organisations seeking training, but not enough resource people to provide it. A larger question about impact was whether agencies actually valued it enough to pay the costs, since a number of the workshops had been funded by donors rather than by the agencies whose staff were actually trained.

3. Working with Conflict training, particularly that offered in Peshawar, was the area

where there was the greatest divergence of opinion. Again, the training events were perceived to be professional in their organisation and methodology. Individuals involved were often inspired by them, as evidenced by changes in their working practice and sometimes the effect on the organisation as a whole. Those not directly involved were more divided, some seeing the change in trainees as a sufficient indicator of positive change, others more sceptical (they’ve imported answers from elsewhere without a deep analysis of what the problems are, they’re enthusiastic but naïve, they offer training and then there is no action). This seems to be at least partly a reflection of the lack of understanding, conceptually, of what CPAU intends and what conflict resolution can offer. This, in turn, may be partly an effect of the early stage in development of the organisation, and its long-term work to change these understandings.

The difficulty also stems partly from the stage of conflict. Because the Peshawar community is still distant from its own situation, it is more difficult to ground the analysis in the reality, and particularly difficult to show concrete examples of what can be done. Clearly, however, there is a need for CPAU to be ever-clearer in identifying its objectives and activities, in enabling complex analysis to take place, and in naming and describing practical actions and their effects. Working with Conflict training offered inside was reported to have good positive impact, though it is still on a small scale. Community-level workshops produced practical plans of action which are now being implemented. Training of the shura (the local decision-making committee) has been particularly effective (see below). Inside, there do not seem to be such doubts at the relevance or practicality of what is offered, perhaps because it is immediately possible to invent and execute real if small practical initiatives.

CPAU’S DIFFERENT ROLES AND THEIR SPECIFIC EFFECTS

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Overall, CPAU is, and is perceived to be, a training network.4 This is really multiple roles, of course. In its network role, it is at a mature stage of evolution, where members are frequently called on as resources for others, as well as finding support and solidarity. Many of its members are inspired and strengthened by finding kindred spirits, and continue their efforts to include peace and conflict issues in their own work. The peace education teachers, in particular, are brought together frequently for solidarity in actual problem-solving as well as shared commitment to issues and methodologies. In its training role with Do No Harm materials, CPAU is experienced, well-connected, and relatively effective. Users would like it to increase its training capacity and deepen its analysis and analytical tools, but they are broadly appreciative of its effect in terms both of staff skills and organisational sensitivity to the consequences of aid in conflict. CPAU is still fairly new at conflict resolution, adapting many training materials and methodologies from elsewhere, and not itself involved in practical conflicts which could be a source of new understanding for it. The involvement inside Afghanistan, however, is beginning to bear some fruit in this direction, and a closer examination of the training of the shura reveals some interesting specific effects.

TRAINING OF THE SHURA CPAU has been working in Herat with and through Ockenden International in community development, including training members of the shura in conflict resolution. This has included the opening of a book to document the conflicts and how the shura is dealing with them. This has led to 1. wide public discussion of the principles and possibilities of conflict

resolution, 2. renewed awareness of and credibility for the shura, including new

interest in becoming members of it, 3. open discussion about the shura, its role and responsibilities, its

objectives, its methods, and an opening up of the criteria for membership, and

4. the institution of a women’s shura. As this example shows, CPAU’s participatory training methodologies and inclusive forms of conflict resolution can, if grounded in the local reality and supported by follow-through, result in appropriate and effective local action. The effects can be seen at the analytical, conceptual, and practical levels, and these in turn can open up further discussion and change.

This kind of example is also extremely important to CPAU as a way to illustrate both conceptually and practically the role and the impact which conflict resolution can have on the situation.

4 Some question whether it can be considered a network once it has paid staff. A broad, normal interpretation would not prohibit this, I think.

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CPAU has identified as one role it would like to play in future that of peace research, specifically research into traditional methods of conflict resolution. That aim would be appreciated by its supporters. In addition, however, it might do well to expand its documentation of examples of practical engagement in conflict, in order to make more people aware of what conflict resolution is and can do, whether traditional or modern. A further role, not mentioned by CPAU but cited by a few others, is that of consultant. CPAU collaborates with a number of organisations, receiving requests to offer training, taking advantage of particular skills and expertise, and contributing to the ongoing discussion among development and aid workers. Some use, or would like to use, whether formally or informally, CPAU as consultants on conflict. A specific example was offered by the BBC, which consults the CPAU coordinator for conflict- and aid-related themes in its influential radio soap-opera, ’New home, new life.’ The radio programme is widely listened to and discussed inside, and themes and characters are already being incorporated into popular proverbs and sayings. An indicator of CPAU’s role here is that the programming head says that he speeds up or slows down conflict resolution storylines in order to consult with Fahim Akim. In terms of impact on the situation in Afghanistan, as outlined in both its mission statement and strategic aims, this role is a particularly effective one. Other agencies mention similar ways in which CPAU has willingly assisted them in their own work, which has in turn led to the spreading of messages of conflict transformation and conflict-sensitive aid through a wide variety of development programmes. A further elaboration of this role is the observation that some of CPAU’s conceptual effectiveness stems from the willingness of others to disseminate its messages. Many other agencies include articles or pages from CPAU in their own publications. Some mullahs incorporate peace themes into Friday prayer-talks. Training materials devised or disseminated by CPAU appear in other agencies’ trainings. In these ways, as through the BBC soap opera, CPAU is able to have influence beyond its direct capacity. Overall, CPAU has found two clear niches for itself, in peace education and training with Do No Harm materials. Its broader work in conflict resolution training is less clear to others, and would benefit from stronger analytical emphasis and the collection of concrete examples. The fact that nearly everyone complains that it needs to increase its capacity should be taken seriously, but the high demand is also an indication that its work is valued. TRAINING AS INTERVENTION IN CONFLICT CPAU has clearly chosen training as its main activity in addressing the Afghan conflict. It offers training (and some follow-up support) in three broad areas, but training is definitely the active role. This offers some built-in opportunities and risks, and also poses some basic dilemmas. Opportunities offered by training as an approach, as seen in the example of CPAU: • It is a very direct way to fulfil the key aim of building the capacity of the Afghan

people to address the conflict. • It fosters collaboration by strengthening staff and through them their agencies, rather

than drawing them away into a new organisation, or offering competing activities.

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• It offers the possibility of combining local learning with the best ideas and experience from the rest of the world. In this respect, it offers the hope of greater creativity and confidence by local people in inventing ways to improve their situation.

• It offers new concepts, which, by reordering the local reality, shed a new light on it, and help people to see new openings and possibilities in what they thought was a hopeless situation.

• It focuses goodwill in the direction of particular activities which may address at least some part of a complex conflict.

• It increases the awareness and understanding of how conflict occurs, who plays what roles, and what can be done to change things. By so doing, it increases the likelihood that people will be able both to limit negative dynamics and to strengthen constructive dynamics.

Risks posed by training as an approach, as seen in the example of CPAU: • It is an indirect way of dealing with the conflict itself. It does not necessarily target

those engaged in violent conflict, nor those supporting it, but targets instead individuals and agencies which may already be seen as engaged in reducing conflict. It can strengthen their efforts, but the role is rather a background one.

• The change it anticipates is in the behaviour and attitudes of individuals, and to some extent of groups. This is a long-term effect, and it is difficult to demonstrate the impact of a particular training initiative, as CPAU has discovered to its cost.

• It runs the risk of being based on the assumption that the provision of skills in conflict-handling to individuals will necessarily improve the situation of social and political conflict. Unless training leads to practical action, its only effect may be to change individuals without changing their circumstances or their capacity for effective action.

• Unless it is accompanied by a broadly-targeted campaign of awareness-raising, training does not, of itself, change the society’s understanding of conflict and how to deal with it. For this reason, it runs the risk of training people to engage in activities which others see as irrelevant, naïve, or even suspicious.

• It runs the risk of being, or seeming to be, an importation of ideas and methodologies from elsewhere, not grounded in local experience and reality. Because the concepts have originated elsewhere, a network like CPAU has to work very hard to re-create them with a clear basis in local reality, and risks being accused of foreign influence.

In all these ways, a training approach leads to some common dilemmas: • How to use new ideas and borrowed frameworks in a way which analyses and

systematises local experience • If the conceptual level is a new way of seeing, how to emphasise that the resulting

action involves also traditional ways of working • How to ensure that action results from training, and is seen as linked to it • Whether to emphasise training of individuals or organisations, communities or those

who work with them, the grassroots or the elite • How to follow training with a programme which addresses the need for changes in

organisations, policies, structures • How to evaluate and demonstrate the impact of training on situations (that training

reinforces other conflict-related activities to improve the overall situation)

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• The difficulty in assessing the impact of training then leads to easy and unprovable assumptions on both sides: that training is effective, or is ineffective, without likelihood of objective proof or agreement.

On the basis of the experience of CPAU, these particular opportunities, risks, and dilemmas have indeed appeared in the forms described, and have informed CPAU’s work and approach. At the meta-level, CPAU and its members are aware of the issues, constantly seeking to clarify, identify, link, include, improve. And they continue to check whether training remains the most appropriate principal approach, as both CPAU and the situation in Afghanistan continue to change. It may, however, also be worth giving a passing thought to some of the risks and problems they have avoided because of their choice of a training approach. If CPAU had chosen to intervene using a different, specific approach, such as political mediation, for example, or problem-solving workshops, they might have met with the following: § Isolation and atomisation § Competition and rivalry with their component organisations § Crises of credibility and legitimacy § Dilemmas over the level at which to intervene § Constant pressure to take positions on political issues § Dilemmas about which parties to include, and how § Constant questioning of their individual backgrounds, connections and views § Queries about their sources of funding § Dilemmas about accountability and transparency This is merely to indicate that each choice carries opportunities, risks, and dilemmas. CPAU has made a choice, and is trying to deal seriously with the consequences. It is anticipated that these patterns will occur also in other situations studied, that the overall results may produce greater clarity, and the possibility for organisations which try different solutions to learn from each other. THE NETWORK: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES The decision to be and to remain a network has been a key one for CPAU. Reasons cited for the original decision include: • to draw on voluntary commitment rather than desire for personal advancement • to avoid taking active, well-placed people away from their organisations in order to

start another one • to work collaboratively with the many agencies, rather than compete with them • to be able to draw on resources (including human resources) of many organisations,

and to strengthen their capacities as well • to be able to start small, without guaranteed funding, and to develop slowly CPAU itself reports, and others agree, that its membership does indeed connect it to many organisations in the aid and development network. In addition to key partners and supporters among international agencies, it draws resource people from both local and international agencies, and these in turn appreciate the upgrading of staff skills, though there are also tensions about releasing staff time. CPAU does not appear to engender

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feelings of rivalry among other agencies, which reported it to be well-motivated and positive. The structure of the network has developed over time, and reflects two quite different kinds of outreach. Having started as a fully voluntary network, with founders providing their own time and occasionally released by their organisations (particularly NCA), CPAU now has two paid staff, the co-ordinator and the trainer. Much of the network’s emphasis is at the individual level – training individuals, follow-up activities of solidarity and support, as well as drawing individuals to act as trainers. There is, clearly, a kind of ‘insider’ or core group of trusted resource people, whose assistance is sought for workshops and seminars. This supplements the small staff, so that, operationally, the network is still heavily dependent on voluntary and released involvement by members. Although this makes resource people’s time one of the limiting factors for CPAU, it also gives members a great sense of ownership and commitment to CPAU. In principle, the network has organisational as well as individual members (2 at present), but for the most part organisations are not members in the way individuals are. Instead, organisations are linked to CPAU in the following ways: • as providers of funds, either for CPAU’s organisational needs, or for training

workshops (NCA, Christian Aid, SAFE, NOVIB) • as providers of other forms of support, such as office space and financial systems

(ACBAR, previously NCA) • as clients or targets of training, which is often directed at many staff members of

particular agencies (NCA, ACBAR, UNDP, Afghanaid, Care International) • as collaborators in community-based training (Ockenden International, Christian

Aid) • as members of the Working Group • in informal consultations The Working Group is actually the decision-making body for CPAU’s day-to-day activities. It includes representatives of six different organisations, who give time to plan CPAU activities. Each of them also takes a special interest in one activity (training, publications, research, management, etc.). The membership of the Working Group has, naturally, changed over time, and it seems to have been a good way to make a broad agency representation quickly aware of CPAU and committed to supporting it. Several interviewees mentioned that they had at some point been on the Working Group, and then turned out to be too busy to continue, yet they remain favourably disposed, in part because of the inclusiveness and transparent involvement of other agencies in CPAU’s decision-making. It is also worth repeating that much of CPAU’s credibility and acceptance by agencies stems from the esteem accorded to key people in it, and from the perceived dedication and professionalism of staff and resource people. Structuring itself as a network, then, has enabled to CPAU to access support without exciting rivalry. It has been able to draw on the skills of staff of many agencies, though not without some tensions over questions of divided loyalties, and in turn to provide these resource people with access to international training and networks. It has been able to work collaboratively in a variety of ways and with a variety of collaborators. At the same time, being a network has sometimes severely limited CPAU’s activities, both in time and money available. It has meant accessing resource people’s time by

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negotiation rather than as of right, and being dependent on changes in policy or practice by many agencies. The number of people involved in its decision-making has made it fairly transparent, which in turn has opened it to many people second-guessing its spending, priorities, and shortcomings. OVERALL: Overall, CPAU has managed to establish and sustain itself at an especially difficult time. By working as a network focusing on training in conflict-related areas, it has had an impact on how conflict is understood and experienced, and begun to empower people to imagine and build peace. Its activities have made development agencies more sensitive to their own impact on conflict, and more likely to include peace-building in development activities. Its work within Afghan communities has identified practical examples of societal structures and collaborative initiatives which can help in the effort to transform a history and culture of violence. CPAU offers lessons to others, in hopes of learning from them in turn.

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APPENDICES PEOPLE INTERVIEWED: CPAU Farida Azizi, Chair (NCA) Mohammed Ehsan, Former chair (NCA) Fahim Akim, Programme Coordinator Yassin Bayat, Trainer Kanishka Nawabi, Working Group (AREA) Leena Atmar, Resource person (NCA) Raz Mohammad Dalili, Working Group (SIEAL) OTHER ORGANISATIONS Ajmal Sherzia, Ockenden International Shirazuddin Siddiqi, BBC Hamidullah Natiq, Afghanaid Mohammad Suleman, Afghan Development Agency Haneef Atmar, Norwegian Church Aid Donna Copnall, formerly Afghanaid Simon Fisher, Responding to Conflict Hafiza Sayee, Women’s section, SIEAL Misaqia Dostar, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan Nancy Hatch Dupree, Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief BIBLIOGRAPHY Edwards, David B., “Learning from the Swat Pathans: Political leadership in Afghanistan 1978-97.” American Ethnologist, v.25, part 4, 1998, pp.712-728. Halliday, Fred, “Soviet foreign policymaking and the Afghanistan war: From ‘second Mongolia’ to ‘bleeding wound.’ Review of International Studies, v.25, part 4, 1999, pp.675-691. Harpviken, Kristian Berg. “Transcending traditionalism: The emergence of non-state military formations in Afghanistan.” Journal of Peace Research, v.34, no.3, 1997, pp.271-287. Jawad, Nassim. Afghanistan: A Nation of Minorities. London: Minority Rights Group, 1992. Klass, Rosanne, Afghanistan: The Great Game revisited. New York: Freedom House, 1987. Marsden, Peter. The Taliban. London: Zed Press, 1999. Roy, Olivier, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.