U.S. State Department and USAID Supported Initiatives to Counter Violent Extremism

The U.S. Department of State and USAID are committed to countering today's threats and building capacity and resilience to prevent tomorrow's challenges. To achieve this goal, the United States is supporting a wide range of programs and initiatives to advance the themes of the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). In Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, ongoing programs focus on strengthening understanding of the local drivers of violent extremism. This includes research and trend analysis that focuses on gender and governance through Regional Violent Risk Assessments in Cameroon, Chad, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, and Uganda. The United States is also supporting civil society practitioners and partner governments to share the latest research on CVE through workshops, online trainings, and in-practice sharing. Efforts in West Africa, working with the Economic Community of West Africa, and in the Horn of Africa, working with the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, focus on developing national, multi-stakeholder strategies to address violent extremism. This includes providing and supporting trainings and exchanges of best practices among government practitioners and civil society leaders. New initiatives in North Africa and the Sahel will build capacity among community and government leaders to counter violent extremism locally with a variety of tools, including counter-messaging strategies. The U.S. Department of State and USAID are also promoting the role of civil society leaders, especially youth and women, in countering and preventing violent extremism. Assistance for projects that build the resilience of youth susceptible to recruitment and radicalization to violent extremism provide youth a sense of belonging. This includes projects that focus on building technical skills and providing vocational training, as well as offering opportunities for civic engagement and leadership training. Support for activities that build networks of youth, women, civil society, and private sector leaders who can provide counter-narratives and counter-messaging through community-based efforts, the arts and media, sports, and culture is also provided. In addition, the United States is strengthening community-police and community-security force relations as ingredients for countering and preventing the spread of violent extremism. Support for community-oriented policing and community engagement projects to counter and prevent recruitment and radicalization in the Balkans, South Asia, the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel offer professional and cultural competency training to local law enforcement, and encourage engagement with vulnerable communities, emphasizing relationship and trust-building activities as well as communal problem solving. Ongoing efforts to build community resilience to recruitment and radicalization to violent extremism include projects to promote inclusive peace and reconciliation and encourage tolerance and respect of religious minorities. Continuing activities include dialogue across religious, sectarian, and ethnic lines, conflict resolution training, and working with community leaders and members to peacefully resolve problems together. Projects to build resilience among youth susceptible to recruitment and radicalization to violent extremism include encouraging youth to be catalysts for inter- and intra-faith cooperation in their communities, and enabling youth to become active advocates by providing technical skills and training, as well as offering opportunities for civic education, community service, and empowerment. The United States is also promoting counter-narratives, including through strategic communications. Expansion of innovative public diplomacy efforts to support counter-narratives and counter-messaging to mitigate recruitment and radicalization to violent extremism in key countries through social media and other information technologies and platforms is provided. Support for alternative narratives and counter-messaging efforts that include amplifying the voices of victims/survivors of terrorism and former violent extremists and training them on ways to broadcast their message, emphasizing the negative impact of violent extremism on families and communities, and utilizing widely accessible technologies such as the internet, smartphones, radio, television, and SMS for maximum message dissemination to vulnerable communities is also provided.