The High Council for National Reconciliation Lacks Plans for Peace

The National Advocacy Network for Peace-FEFA conducted a meeting on February 18, 2021 to talk about strengths, weaknesses and shortcomings of peace process. The meeting was attended by the members of the network from the civil society organizations, human rights defenders, women rights defenders, university lecturers and women rights activists. First, Mohammad Omid Noorzai, head of Election and Peace Department of FEFA provided detailed information about FEFA’s proposals and work plans for peace. He stated some points of the proposal made by FEFA for peace talk’s agenda have been considered for the talks in Doha. He then explained the meeting agenda to the meeting participants. Then, the meeting participants expressed their views on the performance of the High Council for National Reconciliation. They stated that the council hasn’t been able to properly do its duties. The meeting participants added that the council has to work on its structures and capacity in order to become capable of managing the peace process on behalf of the Afghan government. The participants said that less attention has been paid to the technical and academic aspects of peace process by the council. Therefore, the council hasn’t recruited technical people to technically and academically manage the process. Subsequently, priorities of peace process was discussed. The meeting participants stated that having a clear agenda for peace process, putting the people in the picture of the developments and challenges, including public views in the peace agenda, defining every stage of peace process and having preparation and plans for each stage are the priorities of peace process.