This is a collaborative initiative within the framework of the South and Central Asia Project at YCAR. It is focused on Afghanistan in the context of new regional trends. Its goal is to develop innovative approaches to the interrelated tasks of achieving lasting peace in the country and modernization of the Afghan state.
Project Directors:
- Humayun Hamidzada (World Bank, YCAR Research Associate)
- Sergei Plekhanov (Faculty Associate, Politics, York University)
Project Partners:
- South and Central Asia Project, York Centre for Asian Research
- Centre for International Policy Studies, University of Ottawa
- Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies (DROPS), Kabul
- Institute of Asian Research (Greater Central Asia Initiative), University of British Columbia
The project's first event was held in April 2019 at the University of Ottawa.
For more information, please contact the team.
September 2019 | Humayun Hamidzada is co-author of a new report on Central Asia’s growing role in building peace and regional connectivity with Afghanistan. The United States Institute for Peace (USIP) report considers the Trump administration’s 2017 strategy for South Asia, and its call on Pakistan to reduce support for the Taliban and encourage them to enter into peace negotiations. Yet as crucial as Pakistan will be to peace in Afghanistan, a similarly persuasive argument can be made for Afghanistan’s northern neighbours—the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. In this special report, Hamidzada and Richard Ponzio (Stimson Center) examine the vital economic and political roles that these countries can play to support a just and lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region.