By: Wazir Ahmad Khorami
On March 12 th the strategic seminar of CSHRO was conducted in Kabul city, during the seminar representatives of member organizations together with the CSHRO secretariat discussed how to bring strategic changes into future activities of the Network. The strategic seminar was facilitated by Mr. Francesco Paolo Simone Castellani, adviser at the Danish Institute of Human Rights.
At the beginning of the seminar Mr. Malek Sitez, Head of CSHRO’s programs in Afghanistan, explained the importance of strategic planning and regularly updating of CSHRO’s strategy to the participants. The aim of updating the strategy is to involve and include all member organizations into the CSHRO activities.
The participants of the strategic seminar discussed the current strategy in comparison with the current situation in Afghanistan . The participants of the seminar were divided in four working groups where each working group discussed the issues of the key result areas of the strategy (capacity building, coordination and advocacy). During a one hour discussion, participants of the seminar discussed the main challenges of CSHRO in the field of coordination, capacity building and advocacy. The representatives of the working groups presented their ideas about the key result areas on behalf of their working group. The results of the working group discussion are very useful and constructive for future activities of CSHRO. As a result or the discussion two additional key result areas were proposed to be included in the strategy of CSHRO, these were “Public awareness” and “Monitoring”.
Participants of the seminar agreed on collaboration of the member organizations in the field of monitoring the human rights situation as well as the dissemination of information on human rights issues to the people of Afghanistan. Participants of the seminar strongly advised CSHRO to focus on monitoring the human rights situation according to the international human rights standards and to make public awareness programs on human rights issues, democracy and rule of law in Afghanistan.
On March 13 the participants of the strategic seminar looked through visions and missions of the CSHRO strategy.
The vision of CSHRO was updated to the following:
A society based on democracy and the rule of law in accordance with human rights, and a society, where all people are aware of their rights and can claim them through the rule of law. A society where the state regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion and social and political orientation provide equal opportunities for all, and where people are aware of their rights and can claim them in safety and dignity.
Regarding the mission, participants of the seminar discussed the ability and opportunity of CSHRO to update its mission to include new key result areas. Subsequently the mission of CSHRO was reformulated as:
Our mission is to establish a capable human rights movement through strengthening of a rights based civil society and by promoting human rights values, monitoring the human rights situation and disseminating information and by influencing policies in order to reach a society based on democracy and rule of law in accordance with human rights for all male and female in Afghanistan.
During the strategic seminar it was decided to keep all members and partners informed about CSHRO’s updated strategy.
