National-Local P/CVE Cooperation Good Practices

National-Local P/CVE Cooperation Good Practices

29 December & 6 December 2021

The Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Working Group, co-chaired by Australia and Indonesia, has launched a GCTF Initiative to promote the practical use of the Memorandum on GCTF Good Practices for Strengthening National-Local Cooperation for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (NLC Good Practices).

The objective of this Initiative is to promote and operationalize the NLC Good Practices by developing a GCTF Policy Toolkit on this topic. The CVE Working Group is drawing on the expertise of the Strong Cities Network as the implementing partner to carry out a series of workshops that will inform the development of this practical tool.



Key Takeaways
The first virtual workshop kicked off the Initiative’s activities. It began an exchange of ideas and perspectives among national governments, local authorities, and civil society on the challenges and barriers to NLC in their country. It also explored how to overcome these challenges. Participants focused on the practical steps that have been or should be taken—including those highlighted in the NLC Good Practices—to strengthen inclusion, dialogue, building trust, information sharing, consultation, coordination and resourcing.  

During the discussions, participants underlined the need to:

  1. Strengthen and empower national-local cooperation guidelines and develop monitoring and evaluation tools for the implementation of P/CVE National Action Plans.
  2. Coordinate effectively to avoid overlap in the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in supporting P/CVE activities that enable the sharing of best practices and contribute to resilient societies.
  3. Make good use of data collection to generate supportive and effective local government so that interventions can be sustainable.
  4. Build capacity of those on the frontline at the local level in terms of joint work with particular focus on police and psychosocial support to returnees or at-risk people/vulnerable groups.
  5. Involve influencing groups such as religious communities and youth groups to build trust to better direct support from CSOs and public institutions.
  6. Build trust between community actors and the national/local government prior to involving them in P/CVE.
  7. Involve more national and local politicians in shaping counter and alternative narratives and leveraging their public platforms to communicate these narratives more broadly.  
  8. Expand P/CVE actions to the online sphere and include local actors in these activities.

 Related GCTF resources: