Kabul calling: Transition in Afghanistan
IN KABUL - via video or teleconference (technology dependent)
Speakers:
Ashley Jackson - Research Fellow with HPG and Afghanistan specialist
Dr Sima Samar – Chairperson, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission
IN LONDON
Chair:
Nick Schifrin - ABC London correspondent and former Afghanistan/Pakistan correspondent
Speakers:
Lucy Morgan Edwards - author of ‘The Afghan Solution’ and former political adviser to the EU Ambassador to Kabul
Dr Stuart Gordon - International Development Department, LSE and co-author of the UK Government's Helmand Road Map
Description
As world leaders gather in Chicago for the NATO summit of May 2012 uppermost in their minds will be the political imperatives and logistics of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.
An estimated 130,000 NATO troops from 50 contributing countries are scheduled to leave the landlocked country – most of them US troops – by 2014. But what kind of country will the troops be leaving behind and what will be the humanitarian consequences of their departure?
This event has been scheduled to precede the NATO summit and provide an alternative agenda to the one which will dominate in Chicago, by examining the humanitarian implications of the withdrawal of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan.
‘Kabul calling’ brings together panels in London and Kabul to discuss what the humanitarian implications of this process of ‘transition’ in Afghanistan will mean and discuss how a political settlement can best be facilitated and in what form in order to secure the most favourable humanitarian outcome for the Afghan people.