Bottom-up approach to countering violent extremism in Tunisia

This project aims to engage state and non-state actors to identify the push-and-pull factors of violent extremism. Also it seeks to determine areas of commonality and complementarity that would contribute to more effective and collaborative strategies in countering violent extremism (CVE) and the foreign terrorist fighter phenomenon within the Tunisian context. Project activities include: (1) supporting the mapping and selection of community and civil society partners for micro-grants that support local CVE initiatives; (2) facilitating community level dialogue; (3) creating an orientation and shared learning workshop for local partners; and (4) holding joint strategic dialogue sessions between government and civil society to support the development of community-level action plans.

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) increased engagement of diverse stakeholders in community-level dialogue to identify push-and-pull factors for Tunisian foreign terrorist fighters and recommendations to counter extremism. This includes civil society youth women religious leaders local governments schools universities police and the army; and (2) strengthened capacity of stakeholders who are engaged in dialogue to implement initiatives that prevent and counter violent extremism in their communities.