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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 3:43 am
Time: 3:43 am
Results for violent extremism (africa)
1 results foundAuthor: Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation Title: Countering Violent Extremism and Promoting Community Engagement in West Africa and the Sahel: An Action Agenda Summary: On 18–19 April 2013, the governments of Burkina Faso and Denmark hosted a workshop in Ouagadougou on the subject of countering violent extremism in West Africa and the Sahel. The workshop was hosted under the auspices of the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) and its Sahel Region Capacity Building Working Group, which focuses on community engagement as one of its five workstreams. Convened by the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation (CGCC), the workshop brought together 141 participants from 27 countries, four regional and international organizations, and 28 civil society organizations, providing a forum for discussions that highlighted the drivers of violent extremism in the region and explored practical ways of addressing their impact on regional stability, security, and development. As the workshop participants noted, violent extremism in West Africa and the Sahel is fueled by a combination of complex circumstances, including societal conflicts, intercommunal tensions, an underdeveloped sense of citizenship and national loyalty and identity, organized crime, illiteracy, and other challenges related to weak governance, inadequate justice systems, and insufficient service delivery. Violent extremists are exploiting these circumstances and creating what members of the UN Security Council have called an “arc of instability” spanning the Sahara and Sahel. In May 2013, the UN Security Council issued a statement on terrorism in the Sahel that recognized that “terrorism will not be defeated by military force or security forces, law enforcement measures, and intelligence operations alone” and underlined “the need to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, including, but not limited to, strengthening efforts for the successful prevention and peaceful resolution of prolonged conflicts, and also promoting the rule of law, the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, good governance, tolerance and inclusiveness.” That statement highlights the need for concerted action from states, civil society, and international partners to work together to build trust with local communities and help them to counter violent extremism. There is no agreed definition of countering violent extremism (CVE) programming although it has been described as efforts to “prevent non-radicalized populations from becoming radicalized. The objective is to create individual and communal resilience against cognitive and/or violent radicalization through a variety of non-coercive means.” CVE programming can also focus on the need to reduce support for or active participation in violent extremist actions through noncoercive means. Therefore, the range of CVE and terrorism prevention programming and the practitioners involved is quite broad. Numerous actors, including bilateral donors, regional and international bodies, states in the region, and civil society organizations, are pursuing a wide range of activities that contribute to countering violent extremism in West Africa and the Sahel. In many cases, CVE measures build on existing initiatives and policies to address violence and insecurity and promote good governance and development. By addressing conditions conducive to the spread of violent extremism, these measures can be understood as relevant to countering violent extremism without the need to explicitly label them as CVE measures. In the co-chair’s summary at the workshop’s conclusion, Danish Ambassador to Burkina Faso Bo Jensen highlighted four recurring themes that capture the range of CVE and CVE-relevant programming. 1. Empower local community, government, and traditional leaders to work on conflict prevention and resolution in a region that has been plagued by several prolonged conflicts. 2. Strengthen law enforcement, criminal justice, and security sector actors through training and technical assistance focusing on community engagement, the rule of law, and human rights. 3. Actively engage and support civil society at the regional and international level. 4. Identify and prevent violent extremism by addressing its structural and ideological drivers.5 Building on those four themes and other inputs collected from participants during the meeting, this Action Agenda outlines a range of proposed activities to enhance existing CVE-relevant efforts. Details: Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation, 2013. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 10, 2013 at: http://www.thegctf.org/documents/10299/44331/Action+Agenda+ENG.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Africa URL: http://www.thegctf.org/documents/10299/44331/Action+Agenda+ENG.pdf Shelf Number: 129607 Keywords: Counter-TerrorismExtremist GroupsRadical GroupsViolent Extremism (Africa) |