In the media
January 10, 2017
This regional meeting is part of the project "Engaging Civil Society Actors in the Rehabilitation & Reintegration of Violent Extremist Offenders and Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters".
From 13-14 December 2016, ICCT, the Global Center on Cooperative Security and the Centre for Sustainable Development and Education in Africa, convened the first of three regional meetings developed to support civil society actors’ role in the rehabilitation and reintegration of violent extremists and returning foreign fighters in Lagos, Nigeria. The regional workshop brought together civil society organisations from eight countries in the Sahel (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal) working on topics related to rehabilitation and reintegration. The workshop aimed to do the following: 1) network organisations working on rehabilitation and reintegration and related efforts across the Sahel; 2) increase knowledge and build capacity to engage on rehabilitation and reintegration; and 3) assess and add to the policy and programmatic recommendations which have been drafted by ICCT, the Global Center and their partners on the basis of extensive in-country consultations and research.
Discussions emphasised the many aspects of rehabilitation and reintegration including the following points: 1) the need to look at rehabilitation and reintegration in a broader sense that takes into account both perpetrators and victims of violence; 2) the importance of providing protection for organisations doing rehabilitation and reintegration work on the ground; 3) the need for regional networks that help build capacity and awareness on the topic; and 4) the importance of including youth in designing and implementing programming.
