Violent extremism and the threat of terrorism represent a key security concern in countries of East and Southern Africa, both bolstered by social, governance and economic tensions, and exacerbating them. Across the region, increased effort is required to reinforce existing state and community architecture and ensure best practices to address the drivers of extremism are institutionalized, ensure ongoing work is increasingly targeted to leave no-one behind, and increase the complementarity between efforts undertaken by government and civil society in the counter-terrorism and P/CVE space, and enhance coordination capacities while promoting gender and human rights mainstreaming and respect for the rule of law.
Through extensive consultations with partner governments, United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact partners, namely UNOCT, UNDP, UN Women, OHCHR, and UNODC have identified a package of work to accompany and support partner governments in developing, advancing and delivering on their strategies and action plans that are inclusive, with a focus on ensuring complementarity with other local, national regional, and international partners, and the provision of catalytic support that each Compact entity is best-placed to provide.
In each of the four countries, and over a 24-month project implementation period, the Project will provide targeted technical assistance to national authorities in close collaboration with the National Counter-Terrorism Centres, with focus on i) developing and operationalizing plans to assist countries in Eastern and Southern Africa to fully implement national CT/PVE policies and strategies, ii) support in engaging actors across the spectrum of government, civil society and communities to ensure initiatives are inclusive and holistic, and iii) supporting government and civil society counterparts to use monitoring and evaluation frameworks to guide in scaling or replicating successes through standardization and institutionalization.
- CT/P/CVE strategies, action plans and associated activities across the whole of government have monitoring frameworks in place to systematically oversee the effective implementation of the action plans, with budgeted annual work plans in place to track progress and guide coherent implementation, in close engagement and partnership with civil society.
- CT/P/CVE strategies and action plans and associated initiatives in target countries are effectively implemented and monitored annually, serving as a multistakeholder platform for coordination, collaboration and domestic resource mobilization, as well as a rights-based accountability framework for reinforcing good governance, rule of law and social inclusion, for the benefit of the safety and wellbeing for the whole of society.