Mobilising Communities to Build Social Cohesion and Reduce Vulnerability to Violent Extremism

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Publication language
English
Pages
40pp
Date published
14 Jun 2022
Type
Research, reports and studies
Keywords
Social protection
Countries
Niger
Organisations
Mercy Corps

Can bringing people together to collaborate on projects that address shared needs improve social cohesion in conflict-affected settings? Does improving social cohesion – a sense of trust, shared purpose, and willingness to cooperate among different individuals, groups, and institutions in an area – reduce vulnerability to violent extremism? In recent years, donors and practitioners have suggested that building social cohesion between individuals and groups could help ameliorate the grievances and social marginalization that motivate people to engage in violent extremism (VE). Yet there is limited evidence to support these claims, including a relative dearth of rigorous evaluations of social cohesion programs on violence-related outcomes.

To fill this gap, Mercy Corps examined the impact of its USAID-funded Preventing Violent Extremism Actions through increased Social Cohesion Efforts (PEACE) program in the Tillabéri region of Niger. PEACE used Mercy Corps’ signature approach to community mobilization and participatory planning, CATALYSE, to support communities in identifying local issues and implementing projects together that addressed shared needs. These projects – which included mediation and dialogue initiatives, infrastructure rehabilitation, natural resource management, livelihoods support, and cultural events – provided opportunities to strengthen social cohesion along ethnic, citizen-government, and other lines of division in order to make it more difficult for VE groups to exploit identity differences and feelings of marginalization. Under the program, which lasted from 2019 to 2021, Mercy Corps and its local partner, Cercle Dev, randomly assigned 40 villages deemed at risk of VE recruitment to either receive activities during the first phase (the “treatment” group), or to act as a “control” group during the first phase and receive activities during the second phase. Drawing on surveys of 1,800 respondents before, during, and after the program, we tested the impact of different activities on multiple indicators of social cohesion and violent extremism. To help triangulate and explain these results, we also analyzed qualitative data collected by the program.