GCTF Initiatives 2024 - 2025

GCTF Initiative on Education for the Prevention and Countering of Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism

The Abu Dhabi Memorandum for Good Practices on Education and Countering Violent Extremism (Abu Dhabi Memorandum), endorsed in September 2014 at the Fifth GCTF Ministerial Meeting sets out an array of non-binding good practices on how education can be used as an effective way by policymakers, teachers and educators, community-based and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and families and parents to prevent and counter violent extremism (P/CVE) conducive to terrorism. As a follow up, the Abu Dhabi Plan of Action for Education and Countering Violent Extremism (the Action Plan) provides an illustrative list of non-binding recommendations for the practical use of the good practices outlined in the Abu Dhabi Memorandum.

Co-led by the European Union and Morocco, the Initiative on Education for the Prevention and Countering of Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism (P/CVE) was launched in 2023 and sought to build on and operationalize the Abu Dhabi Memorandum and the Action Plan through the creation of several key resources:

• Research Brief
• Training Manual on Education for the Prevention and Countering of Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism
• Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Toolkit on Education for the Prevention and Countering of Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism
• Addendum to the Abu Dhabi Memorandum for Good Practices on Education and Countering Violent Extremism

Several activities were conducted between 2023-2025 within the Initiative framework with the following objectives:

• Documenting and exploring lessons learned and successes based on or relevant to the use of the good practices set out in the Abu Dhabi Memorandum;
• Proposing practical solutions to assist educators in building learners' resilience to violent extremism and facilitating rehabilitation and reintegration processes, as well as mitigating the drivers of the phenomena through tailored Training of Trainers programs devised and delivered by Hedayah;
• Developing and recommending non-binding and high-level indicators to support efforts to monitor and evaluate programming or policies in line with or responding to the Abu Dhabi Memorandum.

GCTF Oversight and Accountability in Counterterrorism Initiative

The GCTF has produced numerous good practice documents on cutting-edge topics related to counterterrorism. However, based on the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights report published in 2019 and entitled ‘Promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism’, an increase of human rights experts and civil society engagement in the development of GCTF documents should be expected.

Led by the European Union, and supported by the International Institute of Justice and the Rule of Law (IIJ) through the Counter-Terrorism Platform for Human Rights Engagement (CT PHARE) as an implementing partner, the Initiative created the Brussels Memorandum on Good Practices for Oversight and Accountability Mechanisms in Counterterrorism. The formulation of the recommendations was informed by a Reference Group which included civil society and human rights experts.