The UN, the EU, and the GCTF: Implications for Future Policy and Practice on Countering Terrorism and Preventing Violent Extremism 1

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1 The UN, the EU, and the GCTF: Implications for Future Policy and Practice on Countering Terrorism and Preventing Violent Extremism 1 The opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York in September 2016 took place as atrocities conducted and inspired by violent extremists continued to threaten international peace and security. The protracted civil war in Syria and political instability in Iraq alone have prompted an unprecedented flow of foreign terrorist fighters (FTF) from Europe estimated to be around 2,500 men and women, many under the age of 25 to ISIL-controlled territory. In some cases, returned foreign fighters have also sought to attract recruits and carry out devastating attacks, as witnessed in Brussels, Paris, and elsewhere in the European Union (EU). This trend is likely to continue as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) faces military setbacks in significant parts of the territory it once occupied, which in turn prompts some of the foreign fighters to return to Europe. Equally concerning is ISIL s ability to inspire attacks around the world, as was the case recently in Nice and parts of Germany. Against this backdrop it was therefore fitting that the EU seized the opportunity during the UNGA High-Level Week in New York in September 2016 to leverage its networks and showcase the actions that it is taking to prevent and counter violent extremism (P/CVE) worldwide, as an integral part of its efforts to implement its recently released Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy. In that Global Strategy, the EU boldly stated that it will deepen work on education, communication, culture, youth and sport to counter violent extremism and it will live up to its values internally and externally: this is the strongest antidote we have against violent extremism. This brief report provides some general observations on the various meetings held in New York during the UNGA week, including two EU co-organised side events. It then takes a glimpse at the current status of the UN and the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) and explores important opportunities that lie ahead. It concludes with seven straight-forward recommendations to further increase the impact of the EU s work to counter terrorism and prevent/counter violent extremism, and to address the scourge of terrorism that can result from violent extremism in the future. General observations from UNGA The annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly at its headquarters in New York City traditionally brings together world leaders from nearly 200 countries. The event also provides a useful forum for highlighting critical global issues including the threat posed by violent extremism and efforts in preventing and countering that threat. On the margins of the UNGA in 2016, the EU coorganised two events with the support of the Counter Terrorism Monitoring, Report and Support Mechanism (CT MORSE). The first event was convened near the United Nations on 22 September The governments of Belgium and Jordan joined the EU in co-hosting it under the title: Global efforts in integrating a youth dimension in preventing and countering violent extremism. As violent extremist groups predominantly recruit individuals between 15 and 30 years of age, it is crucial that P/CVE efforts 1 This report was written by Alistair Millar, Executive Director of the Global Center on Cooperative Security with input from CT MORSE partners Anton du Plessis and Hernán Longo of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). 1

2 engage this age group in developing and implementing solutions to the factors that make youth vulnerable to recruitment and radicalisation. The event brought together over 120 participants from more than 15 countries including Jordan, Belgium, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Spain, Finland, Kazakhstan, Denmark, Turkey, and the Netherlands, as well as representatives from the United Nations, P/CVE practitioners, youth organisations and other civil society actors focused on P/CVE-related policy development, programming and implementation. The event provided a valuable platform to discuss practical ways of promoting youth participation and engagement in global, regional, national, and subnational P/CVE initiatives. The opening included calls on governments to integrate youth in decision making at all levels and to leverage their unique skills, insights, and experiences in developing P/CVE policy and practice. Youth representatives and other speakers highlighted a number of direct and indirect efforts related to P/CVE that are youth-led or focused on youth. The discussion at the event emphasized the need for deeper engagement and dialogue among and between youth, government (notably law enforcement) and private sector. This would provide youth with more opportunities to put forth their proposals and also help policymakers, practitioners and experts alike to better understand the local drivers that compel or motivate youths to join violent extremist groups. In this regard, it was suggested that donors, including the EU, could facilitate more fora for interaction and networking among youth and practitioners from different cities, countries and regions to share programming ideas, lessons learned and experiences. Several speakers also spoke about the importance of taking care not to instrumentalise these efforts for security purposes and asserted that the ultimate goal should be to achieve peace and ensure prosperity for young people and their communities. One way to do so, they suggested, is by bridging the security-development divide and ensuring that P/CVE efforts complement each other whenever possible. Drawing from the discussion at the event, the fifth recommendation at the end of this document, suggests that more support is needed for youthfocused CVE specific projects and initiatives, such as skills trainings with a focus on social media. The second event was co-organised by DG DEVCO and the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), a multi-stakeholder global fund established to support local initiatives to build community resilience against violent extremism. The EU serves as one of the members of GCERF s governing board and also provides financial support to the Fund through the EU Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP). With the title Towards Guidelines for Engaging the Private Sector in Preventing Violent Extremism, one key objective of the event was to announce the launch of a new EU-funded public-private partnership programme, which provides co-financing for private sector investments in selected countries. The event convened senior representatives from governments, the private sector, civil society, and think tanks to guide and inform the development of public-private partnerships. Several key points emerged from the meeting, ranging from the importance of proposing innovative approaches to foster the private sector engagement on P/CVE initiatives, to the willingness and ability of the international community of donors to adapt to the specific risks associated with the type of initiatives that would fall under GCERF s scope, while paying careful attention and setting up safeguards to guarantee full adherence to the vital principle of do no harm by potential private sector partners. Violent extremism poses a severe threat to commerce and promoting community engagement helps to build resilience to that threat, which can contribute to a safer environment for 2

3 companies to thrive and for people, not least, youth and women, to work and help to support their families. To this end, the need to reach out to and engage with more business leaders was underscored. With the support of the EU, GCERF will develop guidelines to help encourage and attract active investment from the private sector to fulfill GCERF s mission and reach out to more communities. The 2016 UNGA week showed that an increasing number of leaders and their ministers are aware of the importance of preventing violent extremism and engaging with local communities, rather than relying too heavily on traditional counterterrorism methods employed by security forces and law enforcement. In general terms, the discourse on CT and P/CVE this year focused on three interrelated issues. The first stems from the UN Secretary General s request that UN Member States develop their own national action plans to ensure that prevention is an integral part of their efforts to address violent extremism and counter terrorism. To that end, a National Action Plans Task Force was announced as a joint initiative implemented by Hedayah and the Global Center on Cooperative Security in order to assist states with development and implementation of their own Action Plans. Second it is now evident that several UN entities, such as UNDP, are developing their own P/CVE work streams within their mandated areas of focus, with others exploring how to integrate P/CVE into their current and future work. This is a welcome development, but it needs to be better coordinated within the UN system to ensure a more consistent approach to resource application, programming, and assessment of the impact of its P/CVE interventions. And third, it is clear that while community engagement is at the core of P/CVE efforts, tensions and suspicions are still palpable between many governments and civil society. The EU is setting a good example by supporting and providing space for nongovernment actors, but it could use its political dialogue to encourage third countries to improve their relations with civil society. UNGA showed that progress is being made with a trend towards a more holistic, strategic approach to preventing as well as countering the threats posed by violent extremism. The desire for more action at the national and regional level is more evident than ever, with, for example, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) convening a meeting to discuss the development of a Center of Excellence on CVE for the Horn of Africa, based in Djibouti an initiative that will need to be carefully monitored to ensure it is harmonized with Hedayah s efforts and to ensure it is focused on P/CVE and not a reversion to traditional CT. Two concerns also emerge as trend lines going forward. One is that the consensus that surrounded the General Assembly s unanimous adoption of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in 2006 is beginning to show some visible cracks. The Secretary General s PVE Plan of Action has been met with some vocal concerns over the past twelve months from member states, who fear that the PVE agenda is undermining their sovereignty and providing an opportunity for groups who oppose their rule by receiving legitimacy and support from the UN and foreign governments. These largely misplaced, often exaggerated and, frankly, rather paranoid claims need to be addressed and, if necessary, challenged in a careful way to avoid reopening the UN Global Strategy and undoing a decade s worth of progress since it was adopted. 3

4 Secondly, it is clear that the use of other fora alongside the UN, such as the GCTF, is not only a sign that the UN has limitations, but that GCTF is having a positive impact, as noted in the section devoted to it below. The outcome of the recent presidential election in the United States generates uncertainty regarding the appetite that the new administration will have to actively support the GCTF (at least in its current form and functions), and many even fear that such support is likely to diminish significantly. Against this backdrop, the EU and the rest of the GCTF membership should renew their commitment to ensure that the political developments in the U.S. will not impair an institution that, regardless of its political origins, came to fulfill a much needed role in the counter terrorism space and that over time developed its own institutional identity. Given its own institutional and political leverage, the EU could and should play a very important role in this regard. The U.S. was an active member of the forum and a key driver of its policies and strategies since its inception; in the event of a decrease in their engagement and support to the GCTF -and even perhaps independently from that possible outcome- the EU must stand ready to help bridge the gap, and do what it can to guarantee that the GCTF and its inspired institutions are not only capable of accomplishing their original mission of supporting rule of law compliant capacity building and good practices in furthering efforts to implement the UN Global CT Strategy, but that they also remain adaptive and responsive to the needs of an increasingly challenging terrorist threat. The United Nations work in this arena On 15 January 2016 outgoing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a Plan of Action on Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) 2 and it was still a topic of much discussion and debate eight months later during UNGA, and the debate looks likely to remain well into the tenure of the incoming Secretary-General, Mr. António Gutteres, who will assume his position on 1 January The current Plan of Action recognises the urgency of getting ahead of the phenomenon of violent extremism and stopping the next wave of recruits falling prey to the growing allure of violent ideology, but it has drawn some criticism for dwelling too much on what member states ought to do to prevent violent extremism rather than offering a concrete plan of action for the United Nations to undertake. Nonetheless, it does build on a host of measures emanating from the Security Council and General Assembly over the past decade, and outlines a holistic approach that goes beyond conventional security-focused counterterrorism measures and instead focuses on a broad spectrum of preventive strategies including conflict resolution, promoting critical thinking in education, and providing youth with employment opportunities and other positive alternatives to violence. This aligns well with the EU s strategic vision and presents opportunities for the EU to provide examples of good practice within the Union and the third countries it is supporting that can be shared with others, including UN member states. When it comes to implementing the new PVE Plan of Action, it will be important to understand that such measures take time to develop in national capitals and at community level. The Secretary-General s April 2016 report on the activities of the UN system on implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy of 2006 noted that the Secretary-General is considering how the United Nations system could be better organized to support a more 2 The UNSG s PVE Plan of Action is available online at: 4

5 comprehensive approach to countering terrorism and PVE. In a way, such statement can also be understood as an implicit recognition of some of the issues that are hampering the UN system s ability to deliver effectively also in the counterterrorism domain, and that were pointed out in the CT-MORSE report of last year s UNGA: excessive bureaucracy, lack of coordination, internal power struggles, fierce competition for resources and mandate overlaps between its different agencies. Consequently, the call for a report by May 2017 in the resultant resolution provides a critical opportunity for the UN Secretariat to present a number of concrete options to its members and enhance the effectiveness of the UN counterterrorism architecture. At present, the leadership structure on countering or preventing violent extremism is inefficient and there are already doubts about the United Nations ability to have real impact on counterterrorism and PVE. It seems safe to say that the fragmentation and confusion referred to above seem to have been exacerbated along with the development of and increasing attention devoted to the P/CVE agenda. With various actors leading different parts of the architecture, member states and UN partners are unclear about with whom they should be engaging on these issues, and internal tensions have led to an uncoordinated approach. With the new Secretary-General assuming his duties at the UN in 2017, the focus should be on organising the UN s counterterrorism and P/CVE work so that it is fit for purpose, and the EU could help drive an effort to fill this gap. While the benefits of the United Nations remain clear when it can help to garner consensus around issues and develop useful norms, the lack of coherence, internal turf battles, opacity of process, and inability to translate words into action is making it difficult for a growing number of member states to invest their time and effort into reforming the United Nations counterterrorism and P/CVE architecture. It is for this reason that there has been a concerted effort to find more viable options, not to replace the UN, but to ensure that core activities such as coordination and capacity building are done more efficiently and in a way that reinforces the UN s own Strategy. The GCTF is an example of one of those options. It has emerged to fill the gaps that the United Nations has left and reinforces what UN is good at: convening a universal membership, raising issues on the international agenda, and setting norms. The Global Counterterrorism Forum and its evolution The GCTF 3 was established in 2011 as an informal, multilateral platform to improve coordination and enhance civilian-led efforts to prevent and counter the threat of terrorism with a central focus on capacity building. Comprised of 29 member countries and the European Union, the GCTF has devoted considerable attention since its inception supporting national efforts to counter terrorism and P/CVE by mobilising resources and expertise and disseminating good practices. Three GCTF- Inspired Institutions (the International Institute for Justice in Malta; the Abu Dhabi-based Hedayah CVE Centre of Excellence; and the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) in Geneva) have also emerged over the past four years. They have all grown and show varying degrees of promise, but it would be useful to take stock of their achievements before creating any new structures. At this juncture, the two relatively new co-chairs (the Netherlands and Morocco, who replaced the original the U.S. and Turkey in 2015) are seeking opportunities to allow the GCTF to set a steady course to mature and increase the quality of its work, rather than creating new institutions and holding such a large number of meetings. Medium and small governments among its membership 3 More Information about the GCTF is available online at 5

6 have not been able to keep up with the requisite demands the GCTF has placed on their staff and resources. The GCTF s International Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism Capacity-Building Clearinghouse Mechanism (ICCM) shows some promise in that direction by helping to provide more information to facilitate coordination and reduce overlap. Since its inception, the real value in the GCTF s work has emerged in two mutually reinforcing ways. The first way is that it helps to bring together a critical mass of geographically diverse countries and focuses on work plans and agendas that further the mission of the GCTF and the specific thematic and geographic issues with in its working groups (the EU Co-Chairs the Horn Africa Working Group with Turkey creating a safe space to allow for serious, strategic/technical discussions among the West and others, including Muslim-majority countries). This has created the climate for many collaborations that otherwise could not have emerged. The second way is through its ability to generate and disseminate good practices that add practical value. UN Security Council Resolution 2178 of September 2014 on foreign terrorist fighters 4 was in large part cut and pasted from the GCTF s Hague-Marrakesh Memorandum 5 developed four months earlier, which presents a set of good practices for addressing the FTF phenomenon under four major headings: (1) radicalisation to violent extremism; (2) recruitment and facilitation; (3) travel and fighting; and (4) return and reintegration. The GCTF then reinforced the resolution by developing a GCTF Initiative to Address the Life Cycle of Radicalization to Violence, including its Toolkit. Going forward it would help if the GCTF s assets are used to help further improve coordination and cement action, making use of its best practice documents, 6 working with the UN to support and reinforce mandates, but also getting on with the GCTF s core business without waiting for UN to deliberate and in many cases fail to follow up. Opportunities and Recommendations As in previous recent years, the EU played a prominent role during both the opening of UNGA and at the GCTF meetings in September The EU, making good use of its CT MORSE facility, also showed initiative in convening high-level officials and experts to highlight and examine critical foreign policy and security issues. The EU also has a key role to play as a GCTF member, working to implement the GCTF s mission, sharing good practice and providing valuable financial support and expert knowledge to the GCTF and its activities as well as all three GCTF-inspired Institutions. Whether it be capacity building supported by the EU to help vulnerable communities including youth and women or the best practices that the EU can offer as it helps partner countries address security threats in a principled and rule of law compliant manner, there are several important opportunities for the EU to increase its leadership and impact over the years to come. The recent and, to many, surprising outcome of the presidential election in the U.S. adds an unexpected element of concern to an already complex counterterrorism and countering violent extremism landscape. While it is too soon to draw any conclusion on the direction the new 4 UN Security Council Resolution 2178 (2014) is available online at 5 The memorandum is available online at Memorandum-ENG.pdf. 6 All best practice documents are available online at 6

7 administration will imprint to its foreign policy and how this will impact global geopolitics, it is this very same unpredictability and the rather reactionary and divisive rhetoric displayed by the U.S. president elect throughout his campaign that is keeping democratic leaders all over the world in a state of tense expectation. The EU should continue to monitor these developments closely, and how they might affect the political dynamics of key international fora, including the UN Security Council. Eventually, it should stand ready to utilize its leverage to ensure that the positive trend towards a more comprehensive and progressive approach to counterterrorism that we have experienced over the past two years is not lost. As mentioned above, the global community is increasingly aware of the importance of preventing violent extremism and engaging with local communities, rather than relying too heavily on traditional counterterrorism methods employed by security forces and law enforcement. This is unquestionably an encouraging development, but one that also requires adapting the existing funding mechanisms to make sure that support reaches the right partners in a relatively quick and sustainable fashion. While modifying the existing programmatic infrastructure and assuming the new risks associated with supporting non-traditional partners is certainly a challenging task and will not happen overnight, it is however one that cannot be avoided if the objective is to turn the P/CVE policy framework into something more than well-intended words. The EU can certainly help make this change, and even assume a leading role within the donor community in that regard, but to get there it has to be willing to address its own fragmentation and bureaucratic hurdles, and overcome the political and institutional apprehension that such a shift is likely to generate. The following seven recommendations were designed with the aim of being instrumental in achieving that goal: 1. Create and disseminate a compendium of EU good practices on P/CVE to show how the EU is able to support a wide spectrum of initiatives and programmes, both within and outside the EU, that other states can adapt and emulate. It should share the compendium with the EU s external partners to help them implement an integrated strategic vision in keeping with the UN s Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and the UN Secretary-General s PVE Plan of Action (as well as the EU s own principles). States seeking to prevent and counter violent extremism should ensure that these principles are embedded in their P/CVE policies and strategies, including upholding the rule of law, respecting human rights, and actively engaging and building trust with communities. The compendium could also help to guide and continually improve the work of the GCTF as well as other governmental and nongovernmental partners across the wide spectrum of issues and activities that undergird prevention peace building, gender equity, development, education, and security to name a few. 2. Ensure the Viability of the GCTF and Take Stock of the Achievements of GCTF Inspired Institutions. Support an independent review of the work of Hedayah and the IIJ (as is currently being done with regard to GCERF) to ensure that investments in these institutions are paying dividends and to guide and streamline their work so it is impactful going forward. 3. Promote, both internally and externally, a wider understanding of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) recently expanded guidelines on preventing violent extremism. This will allow countries to better track the amount of resources that they are investing in P/CVE programming. The EU and its member states should take the lead and set an example in this regard by applying the use of OECD data to demonstrate the balance between and demarcation of the allocation of counterterrorism and P/CVE assistance to other countries. A 7

8 detailed paper, to be delivered in April 2017 by the Global Center on Cooperative Security through the CT MORSE mechanism, will elaborate on this topic and provide recommendations on how to effectively utilise the OECD s new guidelines for P/CVE funding. 4. Advocate for a UN that is fit for purpose on counterterrorism and P/CVE. At times when the UN seems to be too absorbed by its own internal conundrums to provide clear guidance on how to move the P/CVE agenda forward, the EU should work actively with its member states in the UN Security Council and the General Assembly to promote a common position to encourage the new UN Secretary-General to take proactive steps by May 2017 to improve the UN s architecture on P/CVE and counterterrorism. The EU should amplify the need for a single senior official empowered through the direct authority of the Secretary-General to work with the Security Council, the General Assembly, CTITF members, and UNCCT that focuses on capacity building and technical assistance. 5. Support Youth-focused CVE specific projects and initiatives. These could include media or capacity-building training to develop youth organisations strategic communication skills or funding to develop their own messaging campaigns. Further research on youth radicalisation and resilience to help inform P/CVE programming should be supported. This includes a more nuanced understanding not only of the drivers of youth radicalising or being recruited to violent extremism, but also of the factors that motivate youth to contribute to peace and development efforts. Additionally, studies should look more closely at how youth utilise social media and other communication tools, how these platforms are used by violent extremist groups, and how they may be more effectively integrated into wider P/CVE efforts. 6. Convene the private sector at events to publicise and reinforce the guidelines launched at the EU-GCERF side event to promote and sustain private sector engagement and encourage in-kind and financial support for GCERF. This will help to encourage the private sector to use GCERF as a vehicle to reach communities, particularly where there are high unemployment rates and the offering of subsistence and significance is a primary entry point for radicalisation or recruitment to violent extremism. In these cases, private sector partnerships may be more effective than strategic communication campaigns that focus on ideological issues. 7. Be willing to revise and adjust as necessary its own programmatic infrastructure to support community-led P/CVE efforts. The wide recognition of the need to engage more effectively and efficiently with a new range of implementing partners in P/CVE programming generates a demand for more agile and flexible funding mechanisms, and a re-calibration of traditional programmatic risks. In addition to its support to external initiatives like the GCERF s Accelerated Funding Mechanism, the various EU entities working on counterterrorism and development matters should come together in an inward-looking exercise and reassess the effectiveness of existing mechanisms in order to positively reform them, a task that could begin by appointing an Expert Working Group to guide such efforts. 8

9 Annex: Introduction to CT MORSE In January 2015, the European Union (EU) established a project on Counter-terrorism Monitoring, Report and Support Mechanism (CT MORSE) in recognition of the growing importance placed on the EU s engagement on countering terrorism and preventing violent extremism that can lead to terrorism. The specific objective of CT MORSE is to strengthen the global delivery, coordination, and coherence among the various counterterrorism projects financed by the EU, as well as to reinforce the EU engagement within the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) framework. In achieving its objective, CT MORSE has five key result areas: 1. Monitoring EU to provide expertise to EU actions on counterterrorism/cve throughout the programme cycle of research, design, implementation and evaluation. 2. Support: to support the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the European Commission s Directorate- General for International Cooperation and Development (DG-DEVCO) to ensure that the value-added and coherence of EU policy and practice are maximised. 3. Coherence and coordination: both within the programme itself and with respect to any other relevant initiative. 4. Recommendations to the EU: Opinions and recommendations are provided to the EU on needed and advisable adjustments to on-going projects and appropriate actions. 5. Expert analysis and awareness raising: Expert analytical advice is provided to the EU on reports delivered under the different components of the counterterrorism programme. 6. Visibility, liaison, and information sharing: The visibility of the EU and of the counterterrorism programme is increased within the EU, member states, beneficiary countries, partner countries, and organisations. Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism and Counterterrorism and the Broader Development Context Terrorism and violent extremism pose a multifaceted threat that impacts on security, development, the values of democratic societies, and to the rights and freedoms of citizens. Fighting terrorism is among the priorities identified in the European Security Strategy and the EU Council Conclusions on Security and Development. The EU is taking an array of actions as part of a comprehensive approach to address the threat of terrorism and violent extremism, and to keep its citizens safe. The commission has mobilised hundreds of millions of Euros in humanitarian and other economic assistance to respond to the threat and has developed a number of leading initiatives to improve coordination and impact. Key among these is the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) that brings together key experts and works to ensure that research and analysis on this continually adapting threat is up-to-date. The Council of the European Union has outlined a series of steps to ensure the security of citizens by taking action against terrorism, in full compliance with human rights and the rule of law. As the EU s diplomatic service, the EEAS is engaging with third countries to prevent and counter violent extremism and stem the tide of foreign terrorist fighters, including supporting the adoption and implementation of Security Council Resolution Recognising the importance of promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development and vice versa, the European Union Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP) underwrites practical initiatives that further the implementation of the EU Global Strategy. Along with various geographic and thematic frameworks, such as the European Development Fund (EDF), the EU has an array of tools that help inform its preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) programmes. These are also complemented by the short term IcSP crisis response actions, CFSP and CDSP activities, and EU member states assistance. 9