Strengthening Resilience Against Violent Extremism in Asia
The Strengthening Resilience Against Violent Extremism in Asia (STRIVE Asia) Programme, a joint EU-UN partnership, contributes to Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE) in Central, South and South East Asia as the spread of violent extremism poses a significant threat to the international community’s efforts to promote peace and security. The spread of violent extremism in the region also undermines progress made towards fostering sustainable development and upholding human rights.
The rise of violent extremist groups and their widespread messages of intolerance have renewed concern amongst policy makers and practitioners and underline the importance of PCVE. Mitigating the growing magnitude of the threat posed by hate groups and recognizing the impact of violent extremism in communities and vulnerable groups, particularly women and young people, is becoming a high priority for many countries around the world.
Mandate
UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and the Global PVE Policy Programme, managed by UNOCT, provides Member States and regional organizations with technical assistance, upon their request, to develop and implement National and Regional Plans of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism in line with General Assembly resolutions 70/291 and 72/284. The Strategy as well as the Programme also request Member States to consider the recommendations outlined in the UN Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism (A/70/674). The Strive Asia Programme, as proposed, will seek to compliment such national action plans and contribute to existing UNDP and UNODC initiatives in the Central Asia and Asia Pacific regions.
Programming
With the overall objective of enhancing capacity to prevent and counter violent extremism in Central, South and South-East Asia, the programme is structured around three main outputs:
- Output 1: Enhancing the capacity of national and local authorities, legislative bodies, civil society and the private sector for PCVE policy-making, in particular, the capacity to develop and implement PVE national action plans
- Output 2: Enhancing the role of law enforcement actors in preventing violent extremism in close collaboration with non-government actors
- Output 3: Strenghtening local resilience of at-risk communities through the support of community-led initiatives in the PCVE area.
Coordination
Under the overall coordination of UNOCT, STRIVE Asia has three implementing partners: the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) for Output 1, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Output 2 and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for Output 3.
Impact
The intended impact of STRIVE Asia initiative is to contribute to Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism in Central, South and South East Asia through a multi-stakeholder approach, including governments, security actors, civil society and private sector entities. This initiative is already undergoing its inception phase, mainly comprised of a series of scoping visits to the targeted regions aimed at identifying the programme’s direct beneficiary countries.
