Communities First: A Blueprint for Organizing and Sustaining a Global Movement Against Violent Extremism

"The threat of violent extremism is more geographically dispersed and more localized than ever, yet the security-focused and other responses of national governments and multilateral institutions have not been and will not be sufficient to counter and prevent its spread. A more comprehensive and strategic approach that empowers local actors and focuses more attention on community-led interventions to address underlying drivers of the phenomenon is required."

This focus on community engagement in preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) is at the heart of the strategy outlined in this report from The Prevention Project, which was launched in March 2016 to gather from, develop with, and disseminate to P/CVE stakeholders practical guidance on developing and implementing community-focused solutions required to prevent the spread of violent extremism. One piece of this strategy involves addressing the marginalisation and alienation, poor governance, and state-sponsored violence that damage the government-citizen relationship and are among the most prevalent drivers of violent extremism. The Prevention Project draws attention to the lack of cooperation between governments and their civil societies, demonstrating the importance of civil society organisations (CSOs) in P/CVE.

The report provides several examples of community-led P/CVE initiatives, such as:

• In Jordan, civil society groups are bringing together local authorities, community leaders, the private sector, and family members in vulnerable communities to respond to the risk of youth radicalisation through youth-focused programmes and services addressing their needs. They are: working with Koranic schools in northern Mali to promote critical thinking; providing psycho-social support to allow for the reintegration of those who have been rescued from Boko Haram back into their communities; and working with mothers in Pakistan to sensitize them to the risk of radicalisation, its impact on their lives, and the role they can play in countering it.
• In Germany, drawing on successful experience with extreme right-wing recruitment to violence, they have launched emergency hotlines for families and peers of those being targeted by violent extremist recruitment and are working with mosques and Muslim communities to help them to identify individuals who might be at risk of radicalisation to violence, including those fleeing conflict zones. They are: working with local authorities in Mombasa, as well as community leaders and local police, to develop a subnational strategy to address violent extremism and promote human rights, peace, and security; finding ways to engage young people from marginalised communities near Tunis that are targets for terrorist recruitment; and working to develop positive relationships between youth and the local authorities, where the broken relationship between these two constituencies is believed to be one of the principal grievances utilised by violent extremist groups.
• A new network is uniting some 650 youth activists, artists, and technology entrepreneurs from 100 countries, with Facebook providing a safe space for an ongoing international exchange of practices, and more broadly is fostering collaboration and cocreation between its members.
• A June 2016 youth symposium in Djibouti convened dozens of civil society actors from across East Africa to understand and address the specific issues facing youth in the context of violent extremism.
• In September 2016, the Club de Madrid launched a project titled "Preventing Violent Extremism: Leaders Telling a Different Story," which will draw on the experience and political leverage of its members - all former democratically elected presidents and prime ministers - and other policymakers and practitioners to strengthen multidimensional efforts to counter violent extremism narratives.
• In Maryland, United States, as part of an independently evaluated, evidence-based, P/CVE-relevant programme, county authorities are offering training for faith leaders, teachers, social service providers, police, and parents on how to recognise the early signs of extremism in underserviced immigrant communities.
• In Montreal, Canada, a multidisciplinary "anti-radicalisation centre" provides mothers who suspect their children may be vulnerable to radicalisation or recruitment with resources that do not involve contacting the police. The centre focuses on training people to identify signs of radicalisation and researching the drivers of radicalisation in Montreal and what works to prevent it.
• The Global Solutions Exchange is a platform launched in September 2016 to facilitate regular interaction and dialogue on issues, ideas, and solutions between senior representatives of government and independent CSOs, including members of the Women's Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL), that have experience in P/CVE.

Despite these examples (for more, see appendix table 1), there remain challenges to implementing the "whole of society"approach to P/CVE, which highlights the need for involvement of a more diverse set of actors, particularly at the local level. For instance, there is "an international architecture for addressing terrorism and violent extremism that continues to be driven by the interests and needs of national governments and has yet to heed calls to be more inclusive of civil society and other subnational actors. To help address these challenges, The Prevention Project outlines a number of recommendations in this report, drawing on the experiences and expertise of a wide range of policymakers, practitioners, and civil society leaders and have been informed by a series of consultations, roundtables, and workshops organised by or involving The Prevention Project team and diverse stakeholders. The recommendations are organised around a number of themes - the central communication elements of which are summarised below:

• Moving from rhetoric to action, with a particular emphasis on resource mobilisation - One suggestion: Generate and share more data on what has and has not worked to prevent, counter, and build resilience against violent extremism and other forms of violence and on how to monitor and measure the effectiveness of P/CVE programs to allocate existing resources better and help bolster the argument for more investments.
• Ensuring greater coherence between counter-terrorism and P/CVE policies and objectives - One suggestion: Governments and local and civil society organisations, as well as international NGOs, committed to the whole-of-society approach toward P/CVE should draw on the Global Terrorism Index and other relevant indexes and jointly launch a biannual P/CVE index. This index could track states' risks to violent extremism, aggregate their compliance with existing human rights and other international obligations and norms relevant to strengthening the relationship between the state and the citizens to prevent violent extremism, and collect information on steps taken to implement the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General's PVE plan of action.
• Moving from a national-level and security-centric approach to a local-level and community-centric approach - One suggestion: Create more national, regional, and cross-regional networking opportunities for non–law enforcement professionals, including family members, women, and community leaders, who are interested in learning how to identify and address early signs of radicalisation. This could be done through leveraging existing networks in related fields such as crime or drug prevention, mental health, human trafficking, or child trauma, more informally, or the formation of dedicated national violence prevention networks. Where appropriate, they could be anchored in public, non–law enforcement governmental agencies (e.g., public health or education) and connected to each other via the Strong Cities Network.
• Empowering cities and civil society - One suggestion: Organise civil society around the P/CVE agenda by strengthening existing civil society networks and, where appropriate, supporting the development of new ones (see appendix table 2).
• Securing more strategic donor engagement - One suggestion: Ensure an integrated approach to P/CVE that includes a comprehensive assessment of the drivers of violent extremism in the relevant community, drawing on existing and local research whenever possible, and the development and funding of an integrated set of locally led interventions to address the range of drivers.
• Integrating to a greater extent countermessaging and other communications efforts to dissuade potential recruits and delegitimise violent extremist organisations into broader P/CVE efforts and devoting a higher proportion of those efforts to interventions that address the underlying drivers of violent extremism and provide positive alternative activities - One suggestion: Without improving knowledge about the ways in which audiences engage and use violent extremist material, is it is difficult to develop effective counter- or alternative messages and strategies. VOX-Pol, a European Union (EU)-funded academic research network focused on violent online political extremism and responses, is developing a knowledge bank of all work being completed in this space. These and other relevant research findings, particularly related to offline radicalisations, should be shared with academics, CSOs, and policymakers.
• Expanding "off-ramp" programmes (approaches that don't rely on force or jail but focus on community-led interventions to steer individuals away from violence and reintegrate them into society) - One suggestion: Raise awareness among criminal justice officials and practitioners, as well as the wider public, to make clear that such programmes do not mean being "soft" on security but rather are a successful outcome of the criminal process and one that will lead to a reduction of the threat if implemented properly.
• Improving international cooperation and ensuring the international architecture is fit for purpose - One suggestion: Develop an independent, international civil society P/CVE steering group that could (a) elevate and amplify local voices in global, regional, and national PVE policy conversations; (b) connect, including through a dedicated website and secure platform, the growing number of existing PVE networks; (c) conduct advocacy at the global, regional, and national levels in support of the whole-of-society PVE agenda; (d) convene local civil society practitioners around different elements of the PVE agenda to ensure that community resilience is genuine (locally owned and led) and sustainable; (e) play a central role in developing and managing the global P/CVE index referred to earlier, which would include a scorecard to assess the implementation of the P/CVE commitments national governments are making at the UN; and (f) generate and disseminate good practices, including for national governments, across a range of PVE issues but from the perspective of civil society. This could be linked to the global index to help ensure that its findings are acted on so that governments that have a low score are encouraged to improve that score and that more positive practices in one country or community are shared, adapted, and adopted by others.

The report also includes recommendations specific to: the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF); Hedayah, the International Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism; the Strong Cities Network; and the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law (IIJ).