Preventing Extremism in West and Central Africa

When designing interventions, external actors should move beyond a preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) lens in their efforts to understand local security threats. Although many community projects work on development, justice and governance, they can only help address the structural drivers of violent extremism if effective projects can be expanded. Effective projects can only be identified through an evidence-based approach. However, evaluation was found to be one of the weakest aspects of the projects reviewed. This needs to be strengthened for results of these projects to contribute to knowledge on P/CVE. Projects need to be well designed, evaluated, documented and their results made publicly