12 February 2024
Terrorism and violent extremism conducive to terrorism are complex phenomena with different manifestations and deteriorating effects on global peace and security. In its resolution 77/243, the United Nations General Assembly decided to declare 12 February the International Day for the Prevention of Violent Extremism as and when Conducive to Terrorism, in order to raise awareness of the threats linked to violent extremism, as and when conducive to terrorism, and to enhance international cooperation in this regard.
In September 2023, during the 22nd GCTF Coordinating Committee, two P/CVE-related framework documents developed by the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Working Group, co-chaired by Australia and Indonesia, were launched. The two documents: The GCTF National-Local Cooperation (NLC) Toolkit and the GCTF Recommendations for Funding and Enabling Community-Level P/CVE are designed to provide practical guidance to policy-makers and practitioners working in preventing and countering violent extremism at the international, national, and local levels.
These two documents were simultaneously developed and launched due to their inter-complementary nature. Both center around the vitality of collaborative, whole-of-society and whole-of-government responses to terrorism and the violent extremism ideologies underpinning it. Both documents similarly aim to further operationalize the GCTF Memorandum on Good Practices on National-Local Cooperation in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism. Therefore, the CVE Working Group Co-Chairs, Australia and Indonesia, led the Initiative on Funding and Enabling P/CVE initiatives at the Community Level, supported by Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) – a GCTF-Inspired Institution – as implementing partner to produce the Recommendations. The Recommendations channel GCERF’s years’ long experience in funding and supporting grassroots and community-level P/CVE organizations and initiatives to produce towards developing this seminal document which outlines recommendations to governments and donors to overcome commonly faced challenges in working with, and supporting, local P/CVE efforts.
Concomitantly, the NLC Toolkit Initiative was operated with the support of Strong Cities Network as Implementing Partner. The NLC Toolkit is a rich repository of case studies, literature, and resources on the implementation of NLC around the globe to provide practitioners with a reference. The Toolkit is accompanied by an Implementation Checklist to assist practitioners in its operationalization and implementation.
Both documents are also available in Arabic and French on our website.