Inclusive mechanisms of governance and justice targeting youth to counter violent extremism in the IGAD region

 

This project’s objective is to examine opportunities for youth involvement and active engagement in preventing violent extremism in two member states of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD): Kenya and Uganda. The overall impact would be to create a situation where youths in the IGAD region are more actively engaged in decision-making processes to directly inform policies and debates that affect them related to countering violent extremism. It is expected that when efforts are informed by critical consideration of youth inputs, needs, interests, and voices, this will contribute to more inclusive safety and security interventions.

The Organisation for Social Science Research in East and Southern Africa (OSSREA) will lead this project and will work closely with PeaceNet, a Kenya-based civil society organization, and the IGAD Capacity Building Program against Terrorism (ICPAT). To promote the interface and collaboration amongst various stakeholders to counter violent extremism (CVE), the project will target male and female youth, government officials, religious leaders, political elites, and non-state actors.

The project will use a participatory approach, which emphasizes longitudinal action-oriented research to collect gender-disaggregated data on the structural factors that underpin youth exclusion, injustice vis-à-vis violence, extremism, and radicalization. The project will identify and analyze the factors that predispose youth, male and female, to engage in violent extremism in Uganda and Kenya, identify avenues and strategies for creating as well as deepening interventions to engage and empower youth in CVE interventions, and generate evidence to influence the existing and emerging processes and mechanisms related to CVE to ensure that they engage youths and incorporate gender.