Ploughshares Fund Program Officer Haleh Hatami in Islamabad

Ploughshares Fund Program Officer Haleh Hatami is in Islamabad, Pakistan visiting grantees and conducting research on the Ploughshares Fund’s investment strategy in conflict prevention in South Asia.

While in Pakistan, Haleh is participating in several Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) roundtables on governance. In a session on September 14th, Haleh and a group of leading experts debated the driving forces behind militant group activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The panel concluded that militant organizations in Pakistan are largely motivated by commercial benefits, as financial gains seem to draw extremists into militant activity more than ideological beliefs.

“We made a lot of mistakes in Afghanistan,” recognized Robert Lamb, a CSIS delegation member. The panel further stressed the need for the United States and its allies to understand the internal dynamics of the country in order to make significant progress in terms of governance.

Haleh’s trip has been enjoyable and informative thus far, and she is looking forward to returning to share her findings.  She sent in the above photo of Salma Malik of Quaid-i Azam University, an expert on security sector reform and a former participant in the Ploughshares-funded Regional Centre for Strategic Studies annual Summer Workshop.