The Countering Violent Extremism in the Middle East and North Africa (CoVE-MENA) project is a 42-month task order (September 2014–March 2018) under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Programming Effectively Against Conflict and Extremism (PEACE) Indefinite Quantity Contract (IQC). CoVE-MENA will support the USAID Middle East Bureau’s ability to understand and address democracy and governance issues related to conflict and violent extremism by:
- Conducting research studies to increase USAID’s understanding of conflict and violent extremism dynamics and development program responses in the MENA region. Five to eight targeted research studies will provide implementable recommendations to refine USAID’s tools addressing these issues. FHI 360 partner Mercy Corps is leading the task order’s research component.
- Implementing pilot projects in different countries and subregions of MENA that will develop locally owned strategies to counter conflict and violent extremism recruitment and messaging by building the capacity of civil society stakeholders to:
- Engage local stakeholders in identifying conflict and violent extremism drivers and resiliencies
- Develop local action plans to counter conflict and violent extremism
- Implement targeted pilot activities with project grant funding
- Generate and exchange lessons learned with other regional stakeholders working on peacebuilding, conflict mitigation and countering violent extremism
- Applying training and knowledge generation on conflict mitigation and countering violent extremism, and promoting shared expertise and coordination among stakeholders working on these issues. This component will include training USAID Bureau and Mission staff, and developing and facilitating an online community of practice to support continuous learning and ongoing exchange of information among various pilot project participants. FHI 360 partner SSG Advisors is leading the training and knowledge generation component.
