Giving Compass' Take:

• Properly designing and assessing programming to prevent violent extremism can help to increase success. Each government must decide what process makes sense for themselves, these guiding questions can help. 

• How can individuals help support political efforts to create programming to prevent violent terrorism? Is there a role for philanthropy to contribute to these programs? 

• Learn how terror groups exploited charity in Syria. 

Programming to prevent violent extremism, or PVE, in fragile states and conflicts is challenging and fraught with risks.

With two-thirds of all countries in the world having experienced a terrorist attack in 2016, terrorism has become an unprecedented threat to international peace, security, and development, often feeding off violent conflict. The places with the highest levels of terror in the world — Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, and Syria according to the 2017 Global Terrorism Index — are also places with persistent conflict, violence, and grievances.

So, International Alert partnered with the United Nations Development Programme to develop a toolkit with guidance on how to help improve the design, monitoring, and evaluation of PVE programs.

Here are our top 5 tips:

  1. Understand the context and define your terms first
  2. Ensure conflict sensitivity
  3. Base targeting approach on context and risk analysis
  4. Gender is more than just focusing on women
  5. Set your level of ambition

Read more about ways to tackle violent extremism by Ruth Simpson at Devex