5 October 2011 - More than 30 Afghanistan National Army (ANA) Religious and Cultural Affairs (RCA) Officers and the United Nations experts convened on 27 September 2011 in the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP) meeting at the Gambiri military camp in Laghman province. The report on this project can be found on the UNDP website.

The two-day meeting aimed at presenting the APRP, an Afghan-led program to reconcile and reintegrate ex-combatants into society and to help communities to recover from conflict through development activities, to the ANA RCA officers to give them a better understanding of the programme.

“Reintegration is a really important government programme and the army is involved in every community and they have great access to the local community,” said LTC Daniel Canales, ISAF’s Civil Affairs officer in the Eastern region.

“We want them to become the informers to the local community, especially at the district level below. This is the future of bringing the war to a close,” he added.

As the programme is Afghan-led, the role of the international partners is to coordinate, provide advice and facilitate action upon the request of the Afghan authorities.

During a presentation at the meeting, Abdul Wakil, UNDP/APRP Regional Program Coordinator for the Eastern Region, said that the programme’s goal is to promote peace through political approaches and build confidence among Afghans, combatants and communities and develop capacity for demobilization, recovery, peace building and conflict resolution.

“Reintegration is part of broader peace-building campaign aimed at promoting durable peace, development and poverty reduction to pursue reconciliation at all levels,” Wakil said.

In an interview with UNAMA, General Muheburahman, Religious and Cultural Affairs Officer of ANA in the Eastern region, said that the briefing was good, but noted that challenges remain.

“There are some outside elements that support the insurgents,” General Muheburahman said.

“If the insurgents have no one supporting them, it would be easier for us to influence them to reintegrate to the community peacefully,” he added.