West Africa Capacity Building Working Group

Co-chaired by Algeria and Germany, the West Africa Capacity-Building Working Group aims to strengthen national and regional capacities to counter terrorism and prevent and counter violent extremism conducive to terrorism (P/CVE). Through analysis and discussion among experts and leaders in both, the Working Group identifies capacity-building needs unique to the West Africa region.

Currently, the Working Group focuses on three main capacity-building priority areas:

• Border Security Management (BSM)
• Countering the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (C-IED) by terrorist groups
• Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT)

In addition, three cross-cutting issues complimentary to the priority areas serve as points of reference for the Working Group’s activities:

• Inter-agency coordination and the decentralization of counterterrorism and prevention efforts to remote areas most vulnerable to the threat
• Regional and cross-border cooperation between relevant agencies
• Community engagement and the integration of human rights, gender, and youth dimensions in counterterrorism and prevention efforts

In line with the second priority area, the West Africa Capacity-Building Working Group most recently developed the Lomé Recommendations on Preventing and Countering the Acquisition and Use of Improvised Explosive Devices by Terrorist Groups in West Africa, a set of good practices which provides national law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and criminal justice actors with actionable measures related to strengthening the response to the threat posed by the acquisition and use of IEDs by terrorist groups in the region. The Framework Document is also available in Arabic and French.