Program Exploration and Piloting

As expressed by our internal vision, and by the identity of a needs-driven organization, the NCPDO will use the developmental period in programmatic terms to focus on engagements with various stakeholders to identify gaps in services and intervention areas that NCPDO can meaningfully and effectively respond to. Thus, this first period will be marked by exploratory and pilot programs and actions such as research-based projects, stakeholder engagement events, as well as partnership building. Relying on our specific set of skills and insights, we will also provide advisory services largely to non-profits, and possibly to government and international agencies.

Research-based projects will focus on what is often missed by the major research institutions. We will focus on researching, documenting and analyzing the experiences of largely youth populations of Afghanistan to better understand their specific grievances, needs, and interests so that they are better served both by organizations like ours, as well as all other public service actors, domestic and international alike. We will particularly focus on understanding the grievances, needs and interests of those young people we see as our organizational community; those who recognize themselves in and identify with the vision of peaceful and democratic Afghanistan. We will publish the results of these research projects, but will do so responsibly, with utmost care for personal data protection and safety of our interlocutors.

Stakeholder engagement will take various forms, in part similar to those we plan to conduct in regard to community building. They might be bilateral or collective, depending what is assessed to be most conducive to open and informative conversations, and to providing space for shared understanding. These stakeholders will be individuals and groups from the media, various levels of government, different local, identity-based and interest-based communities, in academia, among advocates and in international development agencies. We will be open to partnerships to maximize learning from those already doing meaningful and commendable to build coalitions we can contribute to, in line with our values. For similar reasons, we will provide, when possible and appropriate, advisory services, where we will largely focus on non-profits and specifically youthled or youth-serving non-profits, those led by or serving minority, oppressed or marginalized groups, as well as those gathering professional groups of interest in view of our vision and focus.

The outcomes we expect from these activities are that NCPDO: (a) has attained unique insight into the grievances, needs and interests of youth in Afghanistan, with a specific focus on young people identifying with the values of peace and democracy, and is a nascent reference point for policy advice and information about them, (b) has built meaningful coalitions and partnerships through which it effectively serves its constituents and contributes to peace and democracy in Afghanistan in closely identified niches, and (c) has collected information and practical insights enabling it to design and implement effective programming that contributes to peace and democracy in Afghanistan.