Afghanistan Program for Peace and Development
The Afghanistan Program for Peace and Development (AfPAD) was founded in 2021 with a mission of working closely with individual practitioners, scholars, organizations, and governments to help build lasting peace in Afghanistan.
As highlighted in the Kroc Institute’s Strategic Plan, the program has three interrelated components: research, dialogue and visioning, and policy.
Based on the Kroc Institute’s scholar-practitioner peacebuilder model, AfPAD’s focus areas are interconnected and intended to reinforce one another.
Goals:
AfPAD holds three synergistic goals:
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To conduct scholarly policy-relevant research to further the field of Afghanistan studies in general, and to support AfPAD’s mission in particular.
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To house and provide expert support to the Afghanistan Dialogue and Visioning Process (DVP) initiative. The DVP is a nonpartisan and decentralized effort, led by mediation experts from Afghanistan. Collaborating with those inside and outside of Afghanistan, they are facilitating a process whose goal is to shape a shared vision for the country’s peaceful future, and to build a strategy to achieve this.
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To provide useful policy analysis and briefings to Afghanistan’s stakeholders, including the international community.
Principles:
Given the human rights crisis in Afghanistan and persecution and exclusion of girls, women, and minority groups, AfPAD is committed to inclusion of underrepresented groups in all aspects of its programming. AfPAD’s work is guided by four key principles:
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Process-driven: Change takes time. AfPAD is committed to Afghanistan in the long-term and prioritizes an ongoing process rather than one-off events.
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Focused on democracy and human rights: AfPAD holds an explicit commitment to the principles of inclusive and participatory democratic processes. AfPAD believes that human rights and women’s rights are non-negotiable. As such, its public events feature speakers who advocate for democracy and human rights. AfPAD also convenes private events that bring together a variety of individuals and organizations from Afghanistan and around the globe, representing a broad swath of ideas and opinions for dialogue and discussion.
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Collaborative: AfPAD collaborates with individuals, groups, and institutions inside Afghanistan, as well as international organizations and governments external to the country.
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Afghan-led: AfPAD is led and advised by professional and experienced women and men from Afghanistan. A core group of Notre Dame faculty with decades of professional experience related to Afghanistan provide expert guidance and institutional support to AfPAD.
Image: Daily Life in Herat, Afghanistan. UN Photo/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0