The roundtable on “Potentials and Capacity of the Afghanistan Local Private Sector for Partnership in Provision of Humanitarian and Essential Services in Afghanistan” aims to explore possibilities and pragmatic ideas to facilitate efficient humanitarian assistance and essential services in Afghanistan in favor of maximizing the impact under the current challenges. This initiative will deliberate on opportunities as well as challenges of finance, banking, and meaningful partnership of the private sector, including women-led firms in the effective provision, lowering the cost, maximizing beneficiary, and ensuring the sustainability of Humanitarian and Essential services in the country.
Co-organized by the Center for Dialogue and Progress – Geneva, and the Joint Chamber of Commerce Switzerland – Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the South Caucasus, the roundtable will be held in Geneva on February 6th, 2024. The event will bring together key stakeholders from the private sector, international organizations, and civil society to discuss the potential advantages of the private sector’s enhanced role in providing humanitarian and essential services and their multiplier effects, including building human capacity and lowering poverty.
Objective: The roundtable seeks to foster a comprehensive understanding of the potential solutions and strategies that can be employed to navigate the sustainability, efficiency, and enhancement of the role of women involved in the private sector in the delivery of certain components of humanitarian and essential services in Afghanistan. By exploring the possibilities, adopting best practices, and learning lessons, the roundtable aims to identify practical measures that facilitate durable partnerships between the UN, aid agencies, and Afghanistan’s private sector for effective aid delivery and ensure that essential services efficiently reach the Afghan population.
Key Areas of Focus:
1. Enhancing regional cooperation and coordination: Identifying areas where collaboration between Central Asia states, Afghanistan, and Pakistan can be strengthened to facilitate Afghanistan’s Private Sector engagement in humanitarian assistance and essential goods and services.
2. Addressing financial challenges: Identifying steps towards restoration of nationally legitimate and internationally credible financial mechanisms that could enable funding options to overcome the current barriers that impede the provision of essential services in Afghanistan.
3. Regulatory challenges: Highlight the regulatory and logistics bottlenecks and propose pragmatic solutions to streamline trade and transit processes, ensuring the smooth passage of humanitarian aid and services involving the Afghan private sector into Afghanistan.
4. Women-led enterprises enhanced engagement: Exploring opportunities for women empowerment through engaging women-led firms (SME to Large) and enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of the provision