The past few years have witnessed a rapid rise in terrorism and violent extremism across Africa, generating threats and problems of considerable cost, scale, gravity, and complexity. Africans have addressed these ills head on, responding at the regional, subregional, and national level, yet their policies have not stemmed the terrorist tide and their actions against terrorism may not have a lasting positive impact, if they are not well organized and clearly framed.
African nations—from those currently engaged in counterterrorism to those not presently facing a terrorist threat—might benefit from establishing national counterterrorism strategies. These strategies could help to orient actions toward identifiable long-term objectives, build legitimacy for counterterrorism policy within the entire government and all of society, and harmonize national counterterrorism approaches with sub-regional and regional responses. African nations are presently at different stages in counterterrorism strategy development, so an opportunity exists to engage African governmental and nongovernmental defense/security and civilian leaders in order to share experiences, insights, practices, and lessons across countries.
This program aims to:
- Share experiences, insights, practices, and lessons in national counterterrorism strategy development
- Inform, foster, invigorate, and accelerate national counterterrorism strategies in Africa
- Support the creation and adoption of thoughtful, rigorous, and comprehensive national counterterrorism strategies that promote security for all Africans