Countering Violent Extremism: Program and policy approaches relating to youth through education, families and communities

The focus of international and national strategies for countering terrorism in the past decade has shifted from using hard security measures alone to combat terrorism, to a more multi-sectoral, comprehensive approach, which also includes more preventive strategies known as countering violent extremism (CVE). For example, multilateral organizations such as the United Nations are focusing on CVE through Pillar 1 of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, which addresses “conditions conducive” to the spread of terrorism. This relatively new approach is also apparent through the formation of the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum (GCTF) as a multilateral platform for addressing counter-terrorism issues, and the subsequent establishment of Hedayah, the International Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism, as the first institution to solely focus its efforts in long-term, preventive measures to foster resilience against violent extremism and terrorism. The CVE programs and policies that are emerging both out of the UN, the GCTF, Hedayah and the broader international community are based on an established basic methodology that 1) identifies push and pull factors that lead to recruitment or radicalization into violent extremism, and 2) designs interventions that specifically eliminate these root causes. This paper explores the international framework supporting the development and implementation of targeted interventions, specifically to minimize youth recruitment and radicalization into violent extremism through two program areas: 1) CVE through formal educational institutions, 2) building community resilience through families and communities. This paper also describes the recent work by Hedayah and other international bodies in these two program areas, and recommends potential next steps and ways forward to make these programs more effective.