This project is a joined project with five of Afghanistan’s NGOs. PTRO will be joining with CPAU, TLO, HREVO and EPD to develop a community- and civil society-led roadmap to peace for Afghanistan. PTRO’s role will be to hold provincial level conferences with local CSOs and other community elders to deal with issues of mediation, peacebuilding, reconciliation and the manner in which local and national peace can be linked and mutually support one another. The goal is to map the resources for peace and reconciliation within communities, as well the support that is required could be provided for these activities.

For this project, PTRO will form 18 female justice committees in Kunduz and Takhar provinces. The women in these committees will be trained in legal awareness and access to justice, and indeed this work is well underway. Research will compliment this work: exploring the challenges facing women when attempting to engage with legal bodies and the current mechanisms employed to attempt to overcome these challenges. This research – also underway – will inform the training and engagement with the justice committees.

A recently completed project, this research investigated the perceptions and misperceptions that communities in Badghis, Kunduz and Nangarhar held about WFP, other UN agencies and NGOs in general. Other aspects of this research included communities’ understanding of humanitarian principles, as well as the best mediums for communication and information diffusion in periphery and difficult-to-access communities

The target audiences for this project are local shuras: local organisations containing important community leaders including elders, religious leaders and other influentials. These shuras will be trained in dispute resolution skills in order to enhance their capacity to support and create peace in their communities: on issues ranging from resource management and sharing, to violence resolution. The target provinces are Badghis and Herat.

For this project, organisations in each of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries – Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan - explored attitudes towards the use, management and conservation of water. The research also investigated relations with neighbouring countries concerning shared water supply and the prospects for cooperation.

PTRO was the Afghan research partner, and spoke to one hundred policy makers, practitioners, government representatives and local leaders.

Aiming to coordinate efforts across both Afghanistan and Pakistan, this multi-year, multi-participant project is focused on building the capacity of local and national actors in the skills and institutions that will be crucial for equitable and sustainable development. PTRO’s role in the project is to provide local training in good governance, advocacy and capacity development to civil society organisations, local government representatives and elected officials across four provinces. In addition, PTRO are conducting ongoing human security research in the participant communities, and mentoring other research organisations in research techniques, fieldwork and analysis.