Community-Led Initiatives In Countering Violent Extremism: A Gap Analysis Of Pakistan’s Grassroots Approaches

Abstract

This paper explores Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs in Pakistan on the community level emphasizing grassroots level efforts. This paper discusses violent extremism in Pakistan as as an emerging security and societal threat in Pakistan. Although the counter-terrorism strategy domestically as well as internationally, has focused largely on military centered approaches, there is emerging awareness of non-kinetic ones. These approaches are different from conventional ones which directly involve the locals in an attempt to counter the source of extremism. This paper assesses several of these traditional based community engagement interventions, including rehabilitation and religious reintegration programs; as well as religious counter radicalization counter narratives that have proved crucial in despising extremism. But it is important to note that there are main shortcomings that were reported in realize of these initiatives in resources, coordination, and implementation. Sophisticated funding models are often difficult for grassroots organizations to achieve as a result of which their work is unlikely to be very expansive or long-term. Further, local CVE efforts do not align well with other state-level extremism countermeasures, making even localized countermeasures more disjointed and therefore less efficient. The final area of concern articulated in the study is the mistrust between local communities and government led CVE initiatives. They opined that the result of exerting collective action in such programs is often a mistrust of the government which in turn weakens the ability of such programs to work effectively since the communities will avoid any government related organizations and everything in them. The study further reveals a major issue of exclusion of women and youths within CVE policies and in countering radicalization within families and within communities. Recommendations for building the capacity of grassroots organisations for CVE in Pakistan are made in the context of the findings in the paper. These are raising the resource allocation to non-kinetic approaches, improving collaboration between local and national projects, and building up the socio-political trust on the projects’ behalf. Attempting to fill these gaps may help Pakistan set up a better and long-term strategy to counter violent extremism and make society safer.