Asia

In a Heinrich-Böll-Foundation organized conference NGOs and Afghan civil society organizations exchanged their views on the challenges and threats of environmental pollution in Afghanistan. Besides naming the problems they formulated political demands and proposed solutions to the most urgent concerns.

Nearly six months after the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the No Nukes Asia Forum organized its annual forum to reiterate its position against nuclear technologies and to foster debates on its dangers. Our Southeast Asia Regional Office supported seven Thais to take part in the event. As a result, the experiences and lessons from Japan must be learnt and taken in the Thai power development plan.

The Afghanistan activities and the Civil Society Forum (2./3. December in Bonn)On December 5, 2011 in Bonn an international Foreign Ministers Conference on Afghanistan will take place – nearly exactly to the day ten years after the Petersberg Conference on Afghanistan. Also representatives of the Afghan civil society will ask to speak with their own political proposals regarding Afghanistan’s future.

Afghanistans development is heavily dependend on the role of its neighboring country Pakistan. A new report examines the perceptions of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Elite on the situation in Afghanistan, their interests and strategies. The results are uncomforting.

German involvement in Afghanistan did not begin with the attacks of September 11. An analysis, goals and results of the current crisis of the mission in Afghanistan and a possible future.

Some observers see incompatibilities between democracy, human rights and gender equality, on the one hand, and a world in which religion plays an active role in public affairs, on the other. Others ask whether it is useful to see religion as the nemesis of gender equality, and secularism as others ask whether it is useful to see religion as the nemesis of gender equality, and secularism as the precondition for it.

In the past 50 years, Afghans have witnessed many rights violation and crimes committed by ethnic and ideological leaders, commanders, belligerent factions and locally powerful forces. This study analyzes the issue by focusing on how Afghan citizens assess these crimes today.

The concept of a “good life” touches many layers of everyday life. Our art project SurVivArt creates an international bridge between sustainability, climate change, gender equity, art and culture. With the support of our international offices, SurVivArt shows perspectives and views from artists from different regions of the world,  mainly from the global South.

In Afghanistan, corruption affects people’s lives in many ways. In an interview, Yama Torabi, Director of the Afghan NGO Integrity Watch Afghanistan, criticizes the international perception that corruption is an inherent aspect of Afghan culture. There are alternatives howerer.

To the degree that the international community is concerned with the intra-Afghan agreement and security handover, so should it also be concerned that the process does not harm Afghan civil society, but rather ensure that it has an active voice in the process.