PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government with the support of Aitebaar programme is set to form a government-citizen engagement forum in Peshawar to strengthen peace building initiatives.

This was announced during a consultative meeting organised here on Friday by Aitebaar, a four-year (2012-2016) peace-building project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Scores of government officials, businessmen and educationists attended the event and shared with each other opinion on the ways and means to remove trust deficit between citizens and government officials.

They also exchanged ideas on how an all-inclusive but modest and non-challenging advisory forum could be set up to engage government and citizens to improve law and order situation.

Speaking to participants, home secretary Akhtar Ali Shah said it was the prime responsibility of the government to protect public life and property and that to achieve the objective, the government should engage with people to gain their trust. He said the home department would support the government-citizen engagement forum, which would work like a think tank and advise the government on how to improve law and order and peace-building measures.

Shah said people from different areas would be made part of the advisory group, which would begin functions first in Peshawar and later extend itself to other districts in the province. He said good performance and effectiveness would ensure the forum’s existence even if the current government changed.

Arshad Waheed, who works with Aitebaar programme, said the government-citizen engagement forum was fully supported by the government and that such forums successfully worked in many countries.

He said the government’s ‘post crisis need assessment report’ had identified a trust gap between citizens and security institutions and recommended creation of forums to improve the trust, communication and the people’s engagement to improve service delivery. Other participants welcomed the initiative and said it would help the government formulate better strategies for peace and good governance.

They also called for the formation of a forum inclusive of disadvantaged groups and said the forum should be accessible to all to include ideas and views of the society as a whole.

Published in Dawn, November 29th , 2014