The largest group of U.S.-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to date has responded to the Obama administration’s new “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) strategy. In a joint statement released July 20, 41 NGOs, including the Charity & Security Network, expressed serious concern that the strategy continues the U.S.’s chronic underfunding of development and peacebuilding programs while over-emphasizing military security operations, which often serve to counteract de-radicalization efforts.

While the groups “appreciate the increase in political commitments to address the drivers and enablers of violent extremism,” they express concern that  the strategy risks “repeating the same mistakes as other post-9/11 stabilization initiatives: prioritizing securitized responses over investments to address the structural causes of instability, and coupling the two lines of effort creating confusion and working at cross-purposes.”

The Obama administration’s CVE strategy was rolled out at a White House summit in February. It includes a nine-point action agenda for CVE programs both domestically and internationally. Over the past several months, the administration has worked with foreign leaders to similar strategies, which will be presented at a special CVE side event during the UN general assembly in September.

“There are good things in the [CVE] strategy, like empowering women and youth, and looking at issues of inequality and social grievances,” said Melanie Greenberg, president of the Alliance for Peacebuilding. “But the strategy still assumes the problem is ‘over there,’ and that we can reduce radicalization locally without discussing global and national factors that fuel feelings of alienation, or our own dependence on using militarized responses to conflict.”

The statement sets out six policy recommendations, urging the administration to:

  • Announce robust financial commitments to civilian-led prevention and development at the UN General Assembly side meeting on CVE and reinforce these commitments in the FY17 Budget Request to Congress.

  • Ensure that security operations do not work at cross-purposes with development and peacebuilding efforts—the draft Action Agenda should be amended to include the CVE objectives of all relevant USG agencies.

  • Reverse cuts to democracy and governance programming and advance new monitoring and evaluation frameworks for measuring governance improvements across bilateral and multilateral assistance programs.

  • Uphold commitments to rights-based governance in all bilateral assistance—U.S. security assistance to other states to counter or prevent violent extremism must emphasize and ensure the protection of human rights, citizen security, and equal justice under law.

  • Reform counterterrorism laws and regulations that prevent humanitarian, development and peacebuilding organizations from working to reduce the propensity of communities to support violent extremism—this includes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and related Executive Orders, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, Export Administration Regulations, and partner vetting systems (PVS and RAM).

  • Commit to establishing voluntary USG-NGO Guidelines for implementing the CVE Agenda through joint USG and NGO dialogues that include local community stakeholders.

The statement notes that supporting communities and states “to build safe, just, and resilient societies and addressing the core grievances fueling global radicalization” is the best way to prevent and reduce violent extremism.

The statement was delivered to the White House National Security Council, the State Department’s Under Secretariat for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, and the Countering Violent Extremism Secretariat at USAID. The statement and list of organizations signing it can be seen here.