Events

Civil Society Day | May 25, 2017

Following the 2017 OSCE-wide Counter-Terrorism Conference, the Prevention Project convened representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs), as well as from the OSCE executive structures, the United Nations, and interested participating States during a ‘civil society day’ on 25 May 2017 in Vienna. The purpose was to give CSOs and other local actors attending the OSCE-wide Counter-Terrorism Conference the opportunity to further consider the issues on the conference agenda primarily from the perspective of civil society and other community-level actors, and to put forward a series of recommendations for consideration by the OSCE participating States for strengthening the role of civil society and of local communities in preventing and countering violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism (P/CVERLT) in the OSCE area. The participating CSOs came from across the OSCE area, with expertise on and experience in a range of P/CVERLT issues, e.g., youth empowerment, community-law enforcement dialogue, rehabilitation and reintegration (R/R), religious engagement, research, gender, good governance and democratization. The back-to-back approach proved to be cost-effective and could be seen as a formula for the 2018 Italian Chairmanship in its planning for the next OSCE-wide CT Conference.

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On 24-25 April 2017, the Prevention Project, the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) convened representatives from the growing number of preventing violent extremism (PVE) and PVE-relevant civil society networks and organizations. Participants also included representatives from the United Nations, Hedayah, the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), the European Commission, and select governments.

The purpose of the meeting was to identify ways in which collaboration and cooperation among the growing number of such networks, and civil society organizations (CSOs) working on PVE more broadly, can be strengthened. In this context, discussions focused on how the recently-launched Global Solutions Exchange (GSX) could both facilitate such collaboration and further strengthen the role of civil society in PVE.

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New York | January 26, 2017

The Prevention Project, in collaboration with the Global Center on Cooperative Security convened a roundtable meeting with diplomats, UN officials, and civil society representatives, to discuss the state of the global agenda on preventing violent extremism (PVE) and some of the relevant findings and recommendations from the Prevention Project’s “Communities First: A Blueprint for Organizing and Sustaining a Global Movement against Violent Extremism.

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Washington D.C. | August 4, 2016

The Prevention Project and the Brookings Institution convened a roundtable of representatives from governments, think-tanks and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to discuss the challenges and opportunities cities are facing as they seek to address the global crises of migration and violent extremism. The discussion centered on the ways in which violent extremism and migration challenges can intersect: 1) migrants or refugees may be targeted by terrorist recruiters; 2) flows of refugees and migrants may be infiltrated by terrorist groups; 3) the continuing arrival of migrants and refugees may generate extreme reactions from host and other communities; and 4) ensuring that today’s refugees and migrants do not become tomorrow’s violent extremists. Participants focused on the role of cities in addressing these dimensions of the challenge and the extent to which managing the refugee and migration crisis and preventing violent extremism in cities should be addressed in an integrated manner or whether the issues should be treated separately.

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London U.K. | July 26-27, 2016

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the Prevention Project convened some 25 representatives from civil society, including from international and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to prevent or counter violent extremism in a range of contexts. Participants examined the challenges civil society actors are facing in implementing local CVE initiatives and explored opportunities for improving existing approaches. During the two-day workshop, which was conducted under the Chatham House Rule, participants, inter alia, 1) highlighted a diversity of civil society-led CVE initiatives in different regions; 2) explored the importance of and challenges to building the trust between governments and communities that is critical for effective civil society-led CVE work; 3) discussed how national governments can be enablers and obstacles to locally-led efforts to prevent the spread of violent extremism.

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