The international summer workshop on regional connectivity organized by @HSF and @NDF
collaboratively was held from August 19 to August 27, 2022. It was a journey of 19 informative sessions involving speakers who were experts in their respective fields and institutions. It would be exceedingly favorable to first enlist all of the speakers and the respective sessions with the best of their themes.
@Dr. Adam Saud, in the first session of the workshop, helped in discovering the ways of thinking the regional connectivity in different dimensions and the way forward. Secondly, @Mr. Rafi Ullah Kakar ventured to make all of us, the participants, in an open learning way, able to be aware of the concepts of utilitarian justice, merit, and the complex concept of privilege, its uses, misuses, and the criminal acts being done on the basis of privilege. It was a really impressive and mind-boggling session with him.
Thirdly, @Mr. Muhammad Bilal successfully made us recognize the common regional challenges and HSF’s initiatives to eradicate or at least diminish those regional challenges. He also highlighted one of the greatest challenges, i.e., climate change. Moreover, @Dr. Adnan Rafiq enlightened the participants on the key components of public policy, minority opinion, and different influencers of peace-building from among the youth.
On the second day, @Mr. Fasieh Mehtah presented the core concept of “fail fast and fail forward”, and ignited the spark of the beneficial use of digitalization for regional connectivity. @Ms. Amber Shamsi called attention to the main similarities as well as differences between Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also apprised the importance of communication across borders for better people-to-people ties. @Dr. Aamer Raza sent forth some ethics of Healthy debate by successfully emitting the concepts of epistemology,
emotions, reasoning, confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, and the falsification process.
The 8th session of the said ISW-22 was chaired by @Mr. Haroon Sharif demonstrated the real dynamics of regional connectivity. He highlighted the importance of the regional banking system, telecommunication, and economic proposition. @Dr. Farhan Siddique eminently described the link between geopolitics, geoeconomics, and regional connectivity. He stated many of the gaps in Pak-Afghan relations. By describing the concept of critical-geo-politics, he valued changing the hostile meanings of international frontiers, especially Durand Line. He also raised general awareness about the stratification within the ethnicities.
@Dr. Arshi Hashmi encapsulated a lot of advantageous topics of “Conflict management through regional cooperation”. Along with describing what is conflict, she displayed various 5 styles of conflict prevention: competing; collaborating; compromising; avoiding, and accommodating, in an effective way through group debates. On the fifth bright morning of this workshop, @Dr. Shaheer Ellahi devotedly elucidated the core concept of the spiritual corridor between Pakistan and Afghanistan along with the cultural and linguistic
connectivity. He stated 3 things to connect Pak-Afghan spiritually: Faith; forgiveness and courage. A session on the third gender was also organized and was chaired by two trans-gender females, @Ms. Nayab Ali and @Ms. Reem Sharif. They stressed the importance of third-gender recognition as a transregional challenge in South and Central Asia. In the 13th sumptuous session of the very workshop, @Mr. Anas Malik talked about the role of journalism in enhancing regional connectivity. @Ms. Kiran Afzal elaborated the refugee protection in South and Central Asia. For this purpose, she told about World
Bank’s engagements in FCS (Fragile and Conflict Situation) settings. She talked about energy projects and the refugee support windows. In the last session of the 6th day, @Ms. Sonal Dhanani ignited a spark to learn by drawing frameworks for enhancing regional connectivity through communication/digital platforms.
She incited them to think differently and perform effectively by educating the participants through a useful depiction of African proverbs and group activities. @Mr. Syed Ali Hameed told the participants to overtax the countering policy barriers in regional cooperation and ultimately channel efficient outcomes. He stressed that peace starts small and then grows into a lifestyle.
In the 17th session, @Ms. Amina Khan highlighted the blame game situation, security ties, strategic depth, perpetual mistrust, and last but not least, the bilateral irritants and eventually recommended some ways for conflict resolution. In the last session of the summer school, the first secretary of the German embassy, @Mr. Christian Boettcher talked about prosperity through regional connectivity and appreciated HSFNDF’s collaborative work in the form of the said workshop on regional connectivity.
Apart from that, the backgrounds of all the participants and their cultural diversity were also elegant and impressive. There were about 11 cultural representations and presentations by participants inclusively both from Afghanistan and Pakistan. It raised the sense of awareness, appreciation, tolerance, and acceptance of each other’s culture. A city tour of Murree was also arranged which effectively promoted the sense of youth capacity and team building. Splendid sessions for musical aroma were also witnessed
along with an ecstatic meditation session at dawn. It was all done for keeping the participants involved and motivated.
At the end of the workshop, a majestic visit to the parliament House, National Assembly of Pakistan, Pakistan monument, Lok Virsa heritage museum, and Taxila (including Museum and archeological historic sites) were organized which utterly enhanced the team spirit, democratic sense of proceedings and travel experiences of the participants in a great way. Moreover, a short meeting with the Women Parliamentary Caucus team, in Parliament House, was also held for an open discussion and direct interaction of the participants with the WPC team. And finally, on the 27th of August, the workshop came to its official end eventually paving the way for excitement for many more useful activities of this kind in the future. It was indeed an exquisite experience for me and of course for all other participants as well as for the organizers of this prestigious workshop, for sure.
