Preventing Violent Extremism: Integration Amid a Funding Crisis
Violent extremism must be understood within, and addressed as, part of a wider conflict ecosystem. Integrated responses can offer efficiency, impact and much-needed value for money.
Overview
By contextualising violent extremism (VE) within broader conflict systems, this paper stresses the need to integrate preventing and countering VE across development and security coverage. Despite several conceptual and operational barriers, this approach would not only alleviate the chronic shortcomings of prevention programmes, but also create opportunities for greater impact, efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Drawing on lessons from the Deris Wanaag project and additional expert insights, the paper argues that improved coordination and complementarity are essential amid contemporary aid cuts, offering a series of prescriptions for policymakers and practitioners.
Key Recommendations
- Avoid duplication: Use coordination platforms to streamline efforts, prevent overlap and maximise value for money.
​ - Align objectives: Foster collaboration between donor governments, institutions and beneficiary authorities to ensure cohesive strategies.
​ - Break down silos: Incentivise cooperation among practitioners, donors and stakeholders to align goals and integrate interventions.
​ - Maximise flexibility: Ensure projects are agile, adaptive and long-term to build trust and integrate effectively with other initiatives.
​ - Conduct ongoing context analysis: Use political economy analysis and local insights to inform intervention design and avoid unintended consequences.
​ - Mainstream gender equality and social inclusion: Incorporate gender equality and social inclusion into all programming to address vulnerabilities and exclusion effectively.
​ - Strengthen social contracts: Where appropriate, work with host governments, amplifying their role in service delivery.
​ - Build diverse teams: Ensure interventions are led by multidisciplinary teams with expertise in preventing and countering VE, governance and sociocultural norms.
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Introduction
Typically emerging within wider conflict settings, violent extremist (VE) organisations often take advantage of structural issues relating to governance, insecurity and service delivery. Identity politics, grievance, inequality, disenfranchisement and frustrated expectations can be crucial for understanding their appeal and recruitment methods. Yet programmatic and policy responses routinely treat these issues as if they exist in a vacuum.
Counterterrorism has, of course, evolved over time. Following abundant evidence that kinetic measures alone were insufficient for mitigating terror-related activity, preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) developed in the mid-2000s, with the aim of persuading and supporting rather than punishing or coercing. The logic became pre-emptive, tackling the ‘drivers’ and so-called ‘pathways’ of VE – to defuse and allay malign behaviour before it was enacted. In practice, however, this has frequently proved reductive and piecemeal, leaving P/CVE unable to alleviate the symptoms of system-wide problems that fall beyond its remit and capabilities.
Responding to interconnected challenges while demonstrating a tangible impact on reducing specific threats may be difficult, but finding solutions remains critical. Adopting a genuinely ‘integrated approach’ could provide an answer, allowing stakeholders to pursue shared objectives, develop mutually reinforcing strategies and exploit complementarity, comparative advantage and scale as a means of addressing the structural variables that enable (and perpetuate) violence. Considering the fragmented nature of security, peacebuilding and humanitarian programming – from siloed funding streams to divergent interests and timelines – integration is far from straightforward, but it is possible.
At the same time, global appetite for aid spending has collapsed. The ‘de-institutionalisation’ of multilateral governance and increasing transactionalism of donor markets are reshaping international development and, by extension, security. Reductions in official development assistance (ODA) and the gutting of USAID have already had a devastating toll, leaving programmes short of liquidity. Budget cuts of 60% are ‘common’, as education, welfare, infrastructural projects and emergency relief compete for the paltry resources now offered by ‘hyper-prioritised’ action plans. Amid this ‘reset’, numerous stakeholders are raising concerns that stabilisation, peacebuilding and P/CVE may lose out. Yet, others see the crisis as a ‘blessing in disguise’, with a rapidly changing financial environment presenting opportunities for reimagining how interventions should be designed and implemented. Parsimony is undoubtedly stoking tensions, but attention on streamlining, cost-saving and maximising efficacy could also provide impetus for new partnerships, cooperation and comprehensive approaches to violence prevention.
This paper examines the need for, value of and barriers facing those practitioners and policymakers seeking to integrate P/CVE coverage. The first section explains how terrorism fits within and shapes broader ecosystems of insecurity, unpacking the implications this raises for P/CVE and expounding on the benefits of greater coordination across different workstreams. It then addresses the (conceptual and operational) difficulties of integration, before introducing the Deris Wanaag project – delivered across the Kenya–Somalia–Ethiopia borderlands between 2023 and 2026 – as an example of how to address complex problems in a multisectoral and holistic manner. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations to bolster these processes across the design and delivery of interventions.
Methodology
Much of the analysis builds on work conducted under the Deris Wanaag Project, which is led by Adam Smith International, alongside the authors’ experiences in P/CVE and violence reduction across eastern Africa and the Horn. Lessons learned from recent programmes are contextualised within the wider evidence base, including think tank reports, journal articles, books, monographs and policy briefs. The veracity and limitation of this content have been interrogated in depth elsewhere, including the Prevention Project and in forthcoming Deris Wanaag outputs. The paper also draws on findings from a roundtable discussion (held with regional practitioners, counterterrorism and stabilisation experts and various UK officials) in July 2024, and insights shared via key informant interviews with donors, evaluators and programmers (based in the UK and the Horn) between late 2024 and mid-2025.
WRITTEN BY
Christopher Hockey
Senior Research Fellow
RUSI Nairobi
Michael Jones
Senior Research Fellow
Terrorism and Conflict
- Jim McLeanMedia Relations Manager+44 (0)7917 373 069JimMc@rusi.org
Footnotes
Guled Ahmed, Al-Shabaab Mafia Inc.: Uncovering the Hidden Economy of the Wealthiest Global Terrorist in Africa (Pensauken, NJ: BookBaby, 2025), p. 60. A portmanteau of zakat (the Islamic obligation to give to charity) and racketeering, the term ‘zakateering’ refers to Al-Shabaab ’s extortion of communities living under their influence.
Ahmed, Al-Shabaab Mafia Inc., p. 2.
Alexander Thurston, Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel: Local Politics and Rebel Groups (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), p. 6.
Author interview with counterterrorism expert, online, August 2024.
Author interview with programme monitoring and evaluation expert, online, March 2025.
Author interview with stabilisation advisor, online, March 2025.
Dana P Eyre, ‘From Countering to Preventing to Building: Understanding Preventing & Countering Violence Extremism (P/CVE), and Adapting to Future Challenges’, in Stephen Harley (ed.), Counter-Terrorism (CT) and Counter-Insurgency (COIN): A NATO COE-DAT Research Project (Ankara: Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism, 2024), p. 63.
Author interview with peacebuilding and P/CVE practitioner, online, March 2025; author interview with programme monitoring and evaluation expert, online, March 2025.
Author interview with stabilisation advisor, online, March 2025.
Corinne Graff, ‘Poverty, Development, and Violent Extremism in Weak States’, in Susan E Rice, Corinne Graff and Carlos Pascual (eds), Confronting Poverty: Weak States and U.S. National Security (Brookings Institution Press, 2010), p. 44.
Author interview with donor expert on stabilisation in Africa, online, April 2025.
Author interview with programme monitoring and evaluation expert, online, March 2025.
Author interview with peacebuilding and P/CVE practitioner, online, March 2025.
Author interview with counterterrorism expert, online, August 2024; author interview with stabilisation and communications expert, Nairobi, March 2025.
Author interview with stabilisation and communications expert, Nairobi, March 2025.
Author interview with peacebuilding and P/CVE practitioner, online, March 2025.
Author interview with programme monitoring and evaluation expert, online, March 2025; author interview with stabilisation and governance researcher, Nairobi, April 2025; author interview with development expert, Nairobi, April 2025.
Author interview with development expert, Nairobi, April 2025.
Author interview with counterterrorism expert, London, July 2024; author interview with peacebuilding and P/CVE practitioner, online, March 2025; author interview with programme monitoring and evaluation expert, online, March 2025.
Author interview with peacebuilding and P/CVE practitioner, online, March 2025.
Author interview with stabilisation and communications expert, Nairobi, March 2025.
Author interview with peacebuilding and P/CVE practitioner, online, March 2025; author interview with programme monitoring and evaluation expert, online, March 2025.
Author interview with donor expert on stabilisation in Africa, online, April 2025.
Author interview with programme monitoring and evaluation expert, online, March 2025.
Author interview with counterterrorism expert, London, July 2024.
Author interview with counterterrorism expert, online, August 2024.
Author interview with counterterrorism expert, online, August 2024.
Author interview with stabilisation and communications expert, Nairobi, March 2025.
Author interview with stabilisation and communications expert, Nairobi, March 2025.
Author interview with stabilisation advisor, online, March 2025.
Martha Crenshaw, ‘The Psychology of Terrorism: An Agenda for the 21st Century’, Political Psychology (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2000), p. 405.
Author interview with peacebuilding and P/CVE practitioner, online, March 2025; author interview with stabilisation and communications expert, Nairobi, March 2025; author interview with stabilisation and governance researcher, Nairobi, April 2025; author interview with donor expert on stabilisation in Africa, online, April 2025.
Author interview with donor expert on stabilisation in Africa, online, April 2025.
Author interview with development expert, Nairobi, April 2025.
Author interview with peacebuilding and P/CVE practitioner, online, March 2025.
Author interview with counterterrorism expert, London, July 2024; author interview with development expert, Nairobi, April 2025.
Author interview with development expert, Nairobi, April 2025.
Author interview with development expert, Nairobi, April 2025.
In an interview with the authors (Nairobi, April 2025), a stabilisation and governance researcher stressed the need to ask recipient populations about their ideal scenarios rather than their biggest problems before identifying the barriers and how these can be overcome. Drawing on a ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’-type approach, the idea is to start with aspirations rather than grievances.
Author interview with counterterrorism expert, online, August 2024; author interview with peacebuilding and P/CVE practitioner, online, March 2025.
Author interview with development expert, Nairobi, April 2025.
Author interview with programme monitoring and evaluation expert, online, March 2025.
Author interview with stabilisation and communications expert, Nairobi, March 2025.
Author interview with programme monitoring and evaluation expert, online, March 2025; author interview with stabilisation and communications expert, Nairobi, March 2025.
Author interview with counterterrorism expert, London, July 2024.