“International organizations in Afghanistan often try to reach their goals as if using a raft to cross a river. IDLO did not just give us a raft; you helped us to build a bridge,” Sayed Yusuf Halim, Chief Justice and Director of the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, told IDLO staff during a recent visit to the organization’s headquarters in Rome.
IDLO is a lead partner of the Afghan government and has been working to drive judicial reform and foster the rule of law in the country since 2002. The visit was aimed at strengthening the long-standing cooperation between the Afghan justice sector and IDLO, as well as solidifying their commitment to continued collaboration in the future.
The Chief Justice was accompanied by a delegation of senior Afghan professionals from the Supreme Court in Kabul and regional courts in Balkh and Nangarhar provinces.
“We have seen with interest the changes in the judiciary to make it more effective and responsive to the needs of Afghan people,” said Irene Khan, Director General of IDLO. “We appreciate the enormous challenges you face and the direction you have taken to address them.”
Since 2013, IDLO has been implementing the Justice Training Transition Program (JTTP) aimed at increasing public confidence in the justice sector by building the capacity of Afghan criminal justice sector professionals through training and mentoring. Almost 9000 justice professionals have graduated from the JTTP; 800 individuals from the Supreme Court alone.
As the JTTP comes to an end in 2016, it is currently transitioning responsibility for professional development training to in-house training departments within the relevant Afghan ministries, thus ensuring the sustainability of the program.