March 5, 2018
During the 2018 World Bank Fragility Forum, the Prevention Project, with support from the Swiss Development Cooperation Agency and the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership, hosted a panel on “Preventing Violent Extremism and Development Institutions: Challenges and Opportunities.” The discussion took place against the backdrop of a growing awareness
of how violent extremism can undermine progress on development and a growing body of contextualized research that highlights how overly centralized governance, state violence, inequality, lack of trust between the police and communities, and uneven resource allocation and service provision can lead to rising levels of violent extremism. In short, the linkages between security and development are as clear as ever, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected states.
As a result, a growing number of such national governments are asking development institutions to address violent extremism as part of their programs in those countries and international and national development agencies and peacebuilding and other non-governmental development actors, are rethinking their traditional development approach and how development tools and resources can be applied to prevent violent extremism.
The panelists addressed some of the key questions and challenges confronting development actors, where answers and solutions are critical to maximizing the impact of development institutions in reducing violent extremism and thus securing development gains in fragile and conflict-affected states.