Archived Document
Priority 6. Facilitate Afghan-led efforts toward political reconciliation.
School children’s depictions of peace
from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Sustainable peace and security in Afghanistan require not only a determined counterinsurgency campaign but also genuine political reconciliation. Led by Afghans and supported by the international community, a comprehensive reconciliation effort is essential to fostering a sense of national purpose among ethnic and tribal communities divided by decades of violence.
Canadian Objective for 2011: By 2011, we expect that national and provincial Afghan government initiatives will encourage political reconciliation, and receive timely support from Canada.
Canada supports important building blocks in an eventual Afghan-led reconciliation effort, including the Afghanistan Government Media and Information Centre in Kabul. The centre opened last summer to foster communication between the central government and Afghans and has the potential to facilitate a national dialogue on reconciliation. During the quarter Canada agreed to provide $1.6 million to rebuild the meeting hall of the Kandahar Provincial Council, providing much-needed space for community gatherings.
During her September visit to the Kandahar
Provincial Reconstruction Team,
Her Excellency the Right Honourable
Michaëlle Jean, Governor General
and Commander-in-Chief, met with
representatives from Afghan civil society.
As forecast, progress on reconciliation was minimal during this quarter because of the elections, although the two leading presidential candidates both identified reconciliation as desirable and necessary. The international community deliberately adopted a low profile on the subject to avoid pre-empting the evolution of an Afghan policy on reconciliation.
In the end, two essential steps toward reconciliation remain: the shaping of a national reconciliation strategy and the identification of a national agency to implement that strategy. Realistically these will only occur when Afghan leaders judge the time is ripe.
