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MENA Regional Hub: Strengthening the Role of Cities in the Prevention of Hate, Polarisation and Violent Extremism in the Middle East and North Africa 

Publication Date:

05/02/2024

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Event Reports

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City-Led ActionClimate ChangeMENA Regional HubMigrationR&RSTRIVE CitiesValletta

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Event Details

Description: A regional workshop to strengthen the role of cities in the prevention of hate, polarisation and violent extremism in the Middle East and North Africa through identifying emerging challenges, needs and good practices.

Where & When: 31 January – 1 February 2024, Valletta, Malta

Partners: The International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law (IIJ), and the Ministry of National Heritage, the Arts, and Local Government, Government of Malta and the City of Valletta, Malta

Local Governments Represented:

• Egypt: Governorate of Damietta
• France: City of Strasbourg
• Iraq: City of Hawija, Governorate of Maysan, City of Miqdadiyah, Governorate of Nineveh, Governorate of Saladin
• Jordan: City of Ajloun, City of Amman
• Lebanon: City of Saida
• Libya: City of Mansheya, City of Sabha
• Morocco: City of Agadir, City of Fes, City of Marrakech, City of Oujda, City of Tangier
• The Netherlands: City of the Hague (as co-chair of the Strong Cities Network’s International Steering Committee)
• Tunisia: City of Sousse

City Associations Represented:

• Moroccan Association of Presidents of Communal Councils, Morocco
• Arab Towns, Jordan
• VNG International, The Netherlands

International Partners Represented:

• Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)
• European Union, Foreign Policy Instrument (FPI)
• EU Advisory Mission, Iraq (EUAM)
• Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF)
• International Organisation for Migration (IOM)
• UN Development Programme (UNDP)
• UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

Key Takeaways

For Mayors & Cities:

• By integrating prevention into an existing mandate, local governments can tap into existing resources and expertise to deliver prevention programmes even in the absence of a nationally given mandate (and dedicated national support) to do so.
• Cities have a role to play in the rehabilitation and reintegration (R&R) processes of returnees from conflict zones. These contributions include coordinating efforts of the various relevant local stakeholders at the local level, which enables returning families to access basic services, such as those related to housing, social welfare, education, trauma and other mental health support. 
• Cities should create and maintain platforms for youth engagement and participation, such as youth councils and/or youth centres, to understand the needs and priorities of young people and enable them to play an active role in the decision-making processes at the city level. These platforms can help address feelings of exclusion, which can serve as a driver of hate and violent extremism.
• Cities should work towards creating more opportunities for women to access leadership positions at the local level in order to influence local policies on prevention and response to hate, polarisation and violent extremism.
• Local governments should take advantage of the IIJ’s curriculum on multi-actor P/CVE interventions to enhance their capacities in this area.
• Cities are under-resourced when it comes to addressing the impacts of emerging threats in the region, such as climate change, consequent migration flows and their potential implications on social cohesion; addressing this lacuna is necessary to allow cities to maintain social cohesion in the face of such demographic changes.

For National Governments:

• National governments should ensure local governments have the mandate and support necessary to allow them to tap into their full prevention potential and respond to emergencies and emerging threats such as climate change, migration, conflicts and pandemics. 
• Drawing on the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s (GCTF) good practices and toolkit on national-local cooperation (NLC), national governments should seek to enhance cooperation with local governments in addressing hate, polarisation and violent extremism, including for the purpose of leveraging cities’ access to community-based actors.  This will help ensure national responses to these challenges are informed by the reality of what is needed on the ground.
• National governments should create more opportunities for cities to assume their role in the R&R processes of returnees from conflict zones as part of a whole-of-society approach.

For Partners & Donors:

• Drawing on the IIJ’s curriculum on multi-actor P/CVE interventions, they should support programmes that promote city-led multi-actor collaboration on prevention of hate, polarisation and violent extremism, including as it relates to the R&R of returnees from conflict.
• They should promote the implementation of the GCTF NLC good practices in the region, including through the involvement of local governments in regular dialogues with national government counterparts and other relevant preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) stakeholders. This could be sustained through a mechanism or platform (formal or informal) and protocols to facilitate two-way information-sharing between national and local authorities. Strong Cities could support these processes through sharing of good practices and replicable models in NLC from across the region.

Next Steps

• The Strong Cities MENA Regional Hub will support the cities in the region with implementing the various resources presented during the workshop, from RISE, National-Local Cooperation Toolkit, Strong Cities guides and other resources.
• Strong Cities will disseminate its NLC mapping report for MENA to national and local governments and other relevant stakeholders in the region, highlighting challenges, as well as good practices and replicable models; the findings from and recommendations in this report will guide Strong Cities efforts to work with cities, national governments and other key stakeholders to enhance NLC in the region.
• Strong Cities will continue supporting cities in the region to strengthen their roles in the R&R of returnees from conflict zones through continuous capacity building, sharing of relevant tools and practices, and creating platforms for collaboration and coordination based on the principles enshrined in the GCTF NLC toolkit.
• Strong Cities will support additional, dedicated peer learning and other capacity-building opportunities for municipalities from the region, with an added focus on engagement of youth and other marginalised communities, as well as responding to impacts of global crisis at the local level.
• Strong Cities will build on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it signed with the Moroccan Association of Presidents of Communal Councils during the workshop and seek partnerships with other relevant city networks such as Arab Towns and United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLGA) to jointly support local governments across the region in unlocking their full potential in prevention of hate, polarisation and violent extremism.
• Strong Cities will work with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to support selected Iraqi cities in the implementation of their local prevention plans, thus contributing to Iraq’s National Strategy to Combat Violent Extremism and fostering community resilience against violent extremism. 

Additional Resources

• Navigating Local Impacts of Global Crises: Ten Considerations for Mayors and Cities – Lessons from the Israel-Gaza Crisis, Strong Cities Network, December 2023
• RISE: Rehabilitation and Reintegration through Individual, Social, and Structural Engagement, United States Institute for Peace, November 2023
• Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Returnees from Syria and Iraq: Ten Lessons from the Berlin Experience for Local Governments, Strong Cities Network, September 2023
• A Guide for Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, September 2023
• A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, September 2023
• National – Local Cooperation (NLC) Toolkit, developed to support the operationalisation of the the GCTF Memorandum on Good Practices on National-Local Cooperation in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, September 2023
• Journey to extremism in Africa: Pathways to recruitment and disengagement, United Nations Programme for Development, February 2023
• Developing Multi-Actor P/CVE Intervention Programmes: Implementing a ‘Whole of Society’, ‘Do No Harm’ Approach, The International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law, June 2021
• Memorandum on Good Practices on Strengthening National-Local Cooperation in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism, 2020

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