Civil Society

This is a guest post by Allen Grane, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. Allen is an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves. From 2014 through the February/March Nigerian military surge, Boko Haram was using advanced weapons systems and tactics to conquer and hold territory in northeastern Nigeria. At one point the insurgent group had control of a territory about the size of Belgium. This has changed. Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan increased military efforts in the region by deploying Nigeria’s 7th Division and 72nd Mobile Strike Force to the northeast along with a group of South African-led military contractors from Specialized Tasks, Training, Equipment, and Protection (STTEP). While maintaining Nigerian troop deployments since his election, current President Muhammadu Buhari has made Nigeria’s military partnership with neighboring countries and the resulting Joint Multi-National Task Force a priority. The STTEP contract has apparently ended. This increase in direct military action may have forced Boko Haram underground, and allowed the Nigerian government to retake much of its territory. However, the government has been unable to exercise control and governance over the ostensibly recovered territory. Far from defeated, Boko Haram has yet again shown its flexibility and sophistication by shifting tactics and returning to the more asymmetric fighting strategy it had been using for years. In fact, there was an overall decrease in Boko Haram related violence and deaths since January. However, over the last four weeks, there has been a significant resurgence in violence. Since giving up territorial control, Boko Haram has made much greater use of  suicide attacks. It is safe to say that the group will continue to use this tactic as it is so hard to defend against. In most cases, the bombers appear to be women. Why women would participate in Boko Haram’s fight remains unclear, but female suicide bombers have been seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Traditional female dress provides suicide bombers with excellent cover and concealment in Muslim territories like northeastern Nigeria. At least as worrying is the increased geographical spread in Boko Haram attacks. In the past few weeks there have been a number of attacks in Chad and Niger. Recently, Boko Haram has also attacked targets in the capital of Nigeria, Abuja, and in Kogi State. These venues are further south than Boko Haram’s typical area of operations. More Nigerians outside of the northeast could be facing Boko Haram attacks for the first time. There is little evidence that Boko Haram faces recruiting difficulties. Its brew of religious extremism fed by widely felt grievances against the Nigerian system remains as potent as ever. As such, it is unlikely that Boko Haram can be destroyed by force alone. Nevertheless, should the day come that Boko Haram is defeated, the Nigerian government must be able to provide the people of northeastern Nigeria with much better administration and governance to prevent another group from filling the void left by Boko Haram. For a start, the Buhari administration should move visibly against security service abuses. Buhari should also seek assistance in overhauling the police, the courts, and the jails.

South African President and African National Congress (ANC) party leader Jacob Zuma is complaining that the ruling ANC is losing members. At a party policy forum in early October he announced that party membership had fallen to 769,000 from some 1.2 million three years previously. Zuma said that the party is failing to recruit new members and that some local ANC officials discourage new members from joining so that they are unchallenged in their particular satraps. The ANC has always regarded itself as a mass liberation movement and the vanguard of the struggle against apartheid. Hence, a decline in membership is a blow to its collective self-esteem. Predictably, the party’s response has been defensive. Some party officials are claiming that membership has not declined, but has increased. They say that the decline cited by Zuma reflects those who have not paid their dues or have not registered on the party’s system. Others, however, ascribe the drop to “people serving their own interests.” As a mass liberation movement, the party’s self-image has been that power flows from the grassroots upward. But, there is anecdotal evidence that many local party structures have atrophied, and that patronage-clientele networks more interested in government contracts than in the welfare of the people are taking over parts of the party, especially at the local and provincial levels. The media speculates that the decline is a consequence of the party’s failure to create jobs and improve housing and services, especially the delivery of water and electricity. Infighting within the party also hurts its image. In 2017, if not before, the ANC will elect a new party leader to succeed Jacob Zuma. Leading candidates are deputy party leader Cyril Ramaphosa, chairwoman of the African Union Commission Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (the president’s ex-wife), party chairwoman Baleka Mbete, and party treasurer Zweli Mkhize. The party has been in power since the transition to “non-racial” democracy in 1994. Though firmly multi-racial in its ideology, its electoral support comes overwhelmingly from the eighty percent of South Africa’s population that is black. Its initially multi-racial leadership is increasingly black. The party’s share of the vote in the elections of 2014 declined to 62.15 percent from 65.9 in 2009. Meanwhile, party politics appear to be opening up. The share of votes for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) increased from 16.66 percent in 2009 to 22.23 percent in 2014. Traditionally the party of whites and coloureds, the DA is beginning to attract black voters. The latter may have accounted for as much as 15 percent of the DA’s vote in 2014. The DA has selected a black party leader, Mmusi Maimane, as part of its effort to attract black electoral support. The party already governs the Western Cape and the city of Cape Town. Mmusi Maimane’s political base is Johannesburg. A DA party goal is to win the 2016 Johannesburg city elections, and many observers believe this is possible. On the left, Julius Malema’s radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party is also attracting some who formerly voted for the ANC. The largest and richest trade union in South Africa, the National Union of Metal Workers, appears to be moving toward the establishment of an additional party on the left. It has the potential to attract voters from both the ANC and the EFF. Party political pluralism is a healthy development for South African democracy.

On October 3, Thomas Piketty, the French economist and best-selling author of Capital in the 21st Century, said in his prestigious Nelson Mandela lecture that South Africa’s “…black economic empowerment strategies… were not successful in spreading the wealth.” He said that 60 to 65 percent of the country’s wealth is held by 10 percent of the population, compared with 50 to 55 percent in Brazil and 40 to 45 percent in the United States. He made the point that out of the wealthiest 5 percent of South Africans  up to 80 percent are white. That South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world in terms of distribution of wealth, and that the 9 percent of the population that is white holds a disproportionate share of that wealth is well-known. It is a reality that various black economic empowerment strategies were designed to address and have failed to do so. Piketty in his Mandela lecture made certain suggestions: a national minimum wage, workers on corporate boards, and accelerated land reform. In a comparison of the history of inequality in France and South Africa, Piketty addressed the race factor: “The difference of color of skin is also important because when everybody is white in France, you can sort of forget a couple of generations later who comes from what group, which is more difficult with the color of skin.” There appears to be a consensus in South Africa that “something must be done” about inequality and that formal programs such as the current Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) are not working. But, there is no consensus about what to do. According to the South African media, former finance Minister Trevor Manuel after Piketty’s speech suggested the issues are political not economic: “We’ve got the framework in place but I think the problems are not in the economics: it is not even in the tax law. Our problems are in the leadership and how we convene society to understand we’re in this together.” From news reports, Piketty does not appear to have addressed the greatest driver of poverty: very high levels of unemployment, which approaches 50 percent in some demographics. That in turn reflects the dearth of unskilled jobs where official trade union and government policy has long promoted a highly-skilled “labor aristocracy.” Paradoxically, there are labor shortages because the poor primary education available to the mass of the population does not prepare them to enter the workforce. Meanwhile, elites benefit from the best academic institutions in Africa, and among the best in the world.

The Obama administration and Secretary Kerry have been deeply invested in supporting free, fair, and credible elections in Africa. President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron were directly involved in Nigeria’s national elections in March, as was Secretary Kerry, who also attended the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari in May. This month, national elections will take place in Guinea, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, and the Central African Republic. Elections are also expected soon in Burkina Faso. Marking these upcoming events, Secretary Kerry published an op-ed in AllAfrica.com on October 6, titled Decisive Moment for Democracy. The op-ed praises Africa’s progress toward democracy and recalls the elections in Nigeria, where for the first time in that country’s history the opposition came to power through the ballot box. It affirms the genuine hunger for democracy in Africa and elsewhere. The op-ed also reiterates U.S. policy. But, in this pre-electoral period, it is useful to reiterate them. First, Secretary Kerry calls for the respect for term limits, as President Barack Obama did earlier this year during his Africa trip. Term limits are currently challenged by incumbent presidents in, among others, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. Second, while free, fair, and credible elections do not guarantee a successful democracy, they are important milestones of progress. And, third, elections, important though they are, “cannot be the only moment for citizens to shape their future.” The op-ed asserts that citizens must be part of an ongoing process of engagement between the people and their government. The Secretary’s last point is salutary. Too often observers of Africa see election events as the very definition of democracy rather than as part of an on-going process of governance.

More than four months after he was inaugurated, and more than six months after President Buhari was elected, a partial list of his cabinet nominees has been made public. The senate president read aloud the twenty-one names on October 6. Nigeria’s cabinet consists of up to seventy-two ministers and ministers of state. It is not clear how many nominations Buhari will submit to the Senate. In the past he has said that the cabinet is too big, and that he would like to consolidate some ministries. The list of twenty-one has no real surprises to Nigeria watchers. They include the spokesman for Buhari’s party, the All progressives Congress (APC), Lai Mohammed, and four former state governors (Rotimi Amaechi, Babatunde Fashiola, Chris Ngige, and Kayode Fayemi). Also on the list is Emmanuel Kachikwu, the Buhari-appointed managing director of the state oil company. Among others on the list is the well-regarded Abdulrahman Dambazzau, former chief of defense staff, who has been at Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts Boston. The four former governors are all regarded as having had successful tenures. The list does not indicate to which ministry the nominees would be assigned. Thus, there is no indication as to who will make up Buhari’s financial and economic team. Buhari has said that he will be his own petroleum minister, as was former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He also said that a minister of state would oversee the ministry’s day-to-day activities. There is speculation that Kachikwu might be tapped for that position. The cabinet nominations were made public against the backdrop of the arraignment in a British court for corruption of the former minister of petroleum, Diezani Alison-Maduekwe. Though she has not yet had her day in court, many Nigerians regard her as the face of the extravagant corruption that Buhari campaigned against in his run for the presidency. The international investor community is impatient over Buhari’s slowness in putting into place his financial and economic team. It will have to wait. Senate consideration of the twenty-one will start only next week, and Buhari still has to submit additional lists of nominees.

This is a guest post by Mohamed Jallow, an Africa watcher, following politics and economic currents across the continent. He works at RTI International in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. I received a frantic phone call recently from a family member living in New York City. She was inquiring whether I knew anyone who could help, or any way for, a young seventeen-year-old migrant (her younger brother), stranded in Ecuador to come to the United States. I was lost for words. Do African migrants go to Ecuador? How in the world did he end up there? This is the reality facing parents in many West African countries. Throngs of young men are heading North, for a chance to make it to Europe, or anywhere else with better economic prospects. Many are fleeing conflicts and political repression, while many more are fleeing poverty and unemployment. The journey to the North, however, is fraught with danger. Thousands have died just this year in the Mediterranean, and the death toll is set to beat the record from last year. All this is if they make it through the Sahara desert alive----teeming with bandits, and now Islamic militants. As for the young man who is stranded in Ecuador (I will call him Bangalie), his odyssey started a few months ago when he left the Gambia for the Bahamas, purportedly enroute to the United States without the proper documentation. His family was lured into shelling out about $5,000 of life savings to what I will consider a swindler who promised to help him and five others get into the United States. The journey began in Dakar, Senegal, to Spain and then on to Bahamas where the person leading them disappeared because they could not come up with more money. From the Bahamas, they headed to Quito, Ecuador with hopes of travelling from there to the US through Central America. News of young people moving to the US and seeking asylum had reached them, and they were prepared to try their chances, but the uproar over migrant children in the U.S. has thwarted their plans. As of this posting, he is still in Ecuador, still waiting for a chance to make it to the United States. This is what is known in the Gambia as “the back way.” That is going to Babylon (Europe, America, or anywhere else out of the continent) through illegal and often dangerous means, risking everything, not least their lives. The Gambia, a tiny sliver of a country in West Africa is one of the most affected by outward migration. Whole towns are being emptied of their young men on their way to Europe or America. In some communities, there are very few young men left to work in the farms. Babylon seems to be the major pre-occupation. Conversely, for a good number of the population, migrant remittances from those who manage to make it are a mainstay of economic survival. For others, it is a rite of passage for young men to go out into the world to seek their fortunes. My father and his cohorts were among the first wave of migrants in the 1960s and 1970s that left the Gambia for in Sierra Leone during the diamond boom in that country. The difference this time is that the migrants are younger, and are headed north, much farther north-----to Europe. If the Atlantic was narrower, they most certainly will cross it to the United States. As it turns out, even the vast Atlantic, as in the case of Bangalie, cannot stop those who are willing to give up everything for a better future. For the parents, there is anguish, and then there are mixed feeling. While many will certainly benefit from the remittances of those who make it, they have no clue of what awaits these young men, or the horrors of a journey fraught with uncertainty. As a result, they become willing participants, often draining their life savings, and entrusting their children to people smugglers, and criminals. Even the US embassy in the Gambia has recently gotten involved in the effort to deter young men from leaving through the backway. The embassy sponsored a concert last year with performances in local languages “to sensitize the public” about the dangers facing their children. As far back as I can remember, the constant ebbs and flows of migrants, flowing with the economic currents to a place a little better than their countries, have shaped this part of the world. In the past, these young men would have gone to the larger urban centers or neighboring countries for work. However, the global economic downturn, and the lack of opportunities in these neighboring countries has shifted the tide northwards. So what is being done to stop the flow of migrants like the young man in Ecuador? Nothing much, at least, nothing with significant impact to change minds. West African governments have raised alarms, but they cannot offer anything meaningful for these young men to start a life in their own countries. Regionally, there is no mechanism in place to address this issue as a collective, just as European governments are struggling to come up with a cohesive plan. Meanwhile, these young people continue to leave, and are willing to do anything, to pay any price for a chance to make it to their Babylon. Many will make it, and many more will perish in the Mediterranean, or languish for years in detention centers in Italy and France, or prisons in Libya, and Algeria. In this case, faraway Ecuador.

Jacob Zuma’s anger and poor understanding of the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya apparently still shapes his approach to the West. On September 15, President Zuma briefed the foreign diplomatic corps accredited to South Africa on the country’s foreign policy. According to the South African media, the speech was prepared by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (the foreign ministry). But, the South African media reports that at one point Zuma departed from the text to say, inter alia, “Before the Arab Spring and before the killing of Gaddafi there were no refugees flying or flocking to European countries. It was all quiet….Things were normal in the north of Africa…. Those who were part of destabilizing that part of the world don’t want to accept refugees. It is their responsibility. They caused it. They must address it.” Zuma appears to be mixing together the migration from and through Libya with the much larger flow of migrants from countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Eritrea. Zuma has long been angry at NATO and the west about what happened in Libya. He argues that NATO exceeded its UN Security Council mandate to protect innocent civilians to bring about “regime change” by destroying the Gaddafi regime. He resents the NATO and the west’s ignoring an African Union (AU) “roadmap” for a solution to the Libya crisis. He particularly resents NATO’s decision instead to work with the Arab League during the Libya crisis rather than the AU. He shares the widespread sentiment among African leaders that North Africa is an area of responsibility for the AU and not a part of the Middle East. In light of Zuma’s comments about the flow of migrants to Europe, it is ironic that South Africa has been dealing with an immigrant crisis of its own, mostly from other African states, which has led to widespread xenophobic violence. The South African government has been working with the Southern African Development Community to deal with this crisis. But, contributing to the crisis has been the policy of successive South African administrations to tolerate the policies pursued by Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe government that has generated a flow of migrants from that country.

The conflict with Boko Haram has resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe in northeastern Nigeria and adjacent parts of Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, with estimates of internally displaced persons (IDP) and refugees sometimes approaching two million. In addition, acute malnutrition is widespread. On August 21, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) issued a useful fact sheet that profiles the severity of the crisis, drawing largely on United Nations (UN) statistics. It also provides useful facts and figures on U.S. humanitarian assistance. Some highlights of the USAID fact sheet are given below. The figures provided by USAID are bound to be imprecise because of the circumstances under which they are gathered. But, they provide a benchmark. (The figures describing U.S. assistance reflect the U.S. budget process and may be assumed to be accurate.) The crisis by the numbers: • 1.4 million internally displaced persons in Nigeria as of June 2015 (down from 1.5 million earlier in the year) • 172,400 Nigerian refugees in neighboring countries • 3.5 million Nigerians face food insecurity • 1.5 million malnourished children under the age of five and pregnant and lactating women • 24.5 million people subject to recurrent Boko Haram attacks Of the ten largest donors the United States has provided approximately half of the humanitarian funding to Nigeria in 2015. The figures below are for the current calendar year, up to August 21: • United States- $63,831,160* • European Commission- $24,646,961 • United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (UN CERF)- $9,889,075 • United Kingdom- $6,164,606 • Netherlands- $5,724,355 • Japan- $5,700,000 • Sweden- $4,342,586 • Germany- $3,733,313 • Canada- $2,942,975 • Switzerland- $2,350,156 * U.S. numbers reflect the current fiscal year which runs from October 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015.

The coup in Burkina Faso is bad news for democracy in Africa and also for African perceptions of the United States. The coup puts off the likelihood of an elected civilian government and has been roundly condemned by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, French President Francois Hollande, and the U.S. State Department. The new head of state and primary beneficiary of the coup is General Gilbert Diendéré. He was closely associated with Blaise Compaoré who came to power through a 1987 coup and ruled the country until he was in turn overthrown twenty-seven years later in 2014. Though it was in reality a dictatorship, under Compaoré the government maintained democratic window-dressing in the form of elections. Diendéré was, among other things, an enforcer for Compaoré, and is linked to criminal behavior ranging from arms trafficking to Sierra Leonean rebels to the murder of opponents of the regime – none of which has ever been proven in court but is widely believed on the Burkinabe “street.” From the perspective of U.S. interests, Diendéré was also Compaoré’s point person on the U.S. Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership. In 2010, for example, he presided over a U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)-sponsored training exercise in Mali; he and a contingent of Burkinabe troops were flown to the training site in U.S. aircraft. He also facilitated the U.S. training of Compaoré’s elite guard several years ago, the same unit that carried out this latest coup that has brought him to power. In sub-Saharan Africa, just below the surface, there is abiding suspicion that the U.S. bolsters abusive and anti-democratic regimes’ security organs in the name of counterterrorism without much thought to the long term consequences. Yesterday’s coup in Burkina Faso will feed those suspicions.

Over the last weekend in August, suspected Boko Haram operatives killed some eighty people in three villages in northeast Nigeria, according to the media. The latest round of killings highlights a dramatic resurgence of violence associated with Boko Haram. The most important planks in President Buhari’s election campaign were promises to fight corruption and defeat Boko Haram. Since his inauguration, the president has fired the Jonathan administration’s military service chiefs and replaced them with appointments chosen on merit. He has moved the military headquarters of the operation against Boko Haram from Abuja to Maiduguri, the epicenter of Boko Haram operations. Shortly before last weekend’s carnage, he directed the service chiefs to defeat Boko Haram in “three months.” He has also appointed a new intelligence chief. Perhaps in response to reinvigorated government pressure, Boko Haram appears to have shifted tactics. It has been making greater use of suicide bombers rather than whole sale attacks by a large number of operatives, which were typical at the beginning of the year. Since Buhari’s election suicide attacks had become more frequent, but were generally claiming fewer lives than had the prior large scale attacks. However, events in August indicate there has been a reversion to the previous pattern, with larger numbers of Boko Haram insurgents conducting attacks. It remains to be seen whether this upsurge will be sustained. What is unusual about the August 29-30 village attacks was that Boko Haram used horses rather than gasoline powered vehicles. That might indicate that it faces fuel and vehicle shortages.

Lagos, one of the largest cities in the world and the heart of Nigeria’s modern economy, has not been the venue for Boko Haram or other radical jihadi terrorism. The sole episode occurred in 2014 and was small in scale. However, Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS), which has some similarities to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, is raising the possibility that Lagos’ immunity may be about to change. According to the BBC, the DSS claims that it has arrested twelve Boko Haram operatives in Lagos since July, and there have also been arrests in Enugu, in the southeast of Nigeria. A DSS spokesman says that the spread of Boko Haram’s activities is the result of increased pressure from the Nigerian security services in the northeast, its usual operational venue. It is true that Boko Haram activities in the northeast have become more scattered since the group has shifted its focus away from occupying territory. However, according to the Nigeria Security Tracker, deaths involving Boko Haram had fallen to 557 in May and 445 in June, jumping to 1,389 in July. President Muhammadu Buhari has launched a military offensive against Boko Haram, and shifted the locus of the counterinsurgency efforts to Maiduguri. In his speech on August 13, President Buhari charged the military service chiefs with the defeat of Boko Haram in three months. In July he fired the previous service chiefs appointed by former President Goodluck Jonathan. The new service chiefs know that they have no guaranteed security of tenure in the event they fail against Boko Haram. Similarly, Buhari appointed a new DSS director general in early July. He, too, will be under pressure to show results. Such pressure could result in the military and the DSS overstating their success. However, as Boko Haram is decentralized and increasingly geographically scattered in its operations, a future attack on Lagos or other large cities in the south cannot be ruled out.

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from August 22, 2015 to August 28, 2015. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker.   August 22: Sectarian violence in Gassol, Taraba, resulted in seven deaths. August 22: Sectarian violence in Barkin Ladi, Plateau, resulted in two deaths. August 23: Boko Haram ambushed the Nigerian chief of army staff’s convoy in Dikwa, Borno, killing one soldier. Ten insurgents were also killed. August 25: Two suicide bombers killed themselves and six others in Damaturu, Yobe. Boko Haram is suspected.  August 25: Two suicide bombers killed themselves and one soldier in Maiduguri, Borno. Boko Haram is suspected. August 26: Two suicide bombers attacked a Chadian army camp in Kaiga Ngouboua, Chad, killing only themselves. Boko Haram is suspected. August 26: Pirates abducted three in Ogbia, Bayelsa. August 26: Boko Haram killed one Nigerien soldier and two others in Abadam, Niger.  

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Abuja August 23 to 24, his first to Nigeria since the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari. The secretary general commemorated the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the UN building in Abuja that killed some twenty UN employees and others. He also marked the 500 day anniversary of the Boko Haram kidnapping of more than 200 Chibok schools girls. As expected, the secretary general praised Nigeria for the conduct of the 2015 elections and the democratic transfer of power. According to the media, in his conversation with President Buhari, the secretary general affirmed his support for Nigeria’s struggle against terrorism stressed the need for education, especially for women and girls, and then emphasized the humanitarian challenges in northern Nigeria. In the past, Nigeria has been reluctant to ask for outside help in responding to humanitarian challenges. That appears to be changing. Just as President Buhari has supported a multi-national approach to Boko Haram, so long as Nigeria leads the effort on Nigerian territory, the Nigerian president is indicating an openness to international humanitarian assistance for the 1.5 million internally displaced persons in Nigeria’s northeast. In his public statement following his meeting with the secretary general, Buhari said that he hoped the secretary general would report to the UN what Nigeria is doing “so that Nigeria can be helped.” Nigeria’s opening up comes not a moment too soon, as Boko Haram depredations continue. Shortly before the secretary general’s arrival in Nigeria, Boko Haram tried to kill the chief of army staff. The magnitude of the humanitarian challenges in the northeast would appear to be beyond what any developing nation can meet alone.  An international effort will be required, in which the UN is bound to play a major role.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from Dr. Khalid Koser, executive director of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) and Amy E. Cunningham, an advisor with GCERF. Here they discuss how a global policy shift to tackle violent extremism is exposing tensions between the development and security sectors. Led by the United States and partner governments, ‘countering violent extremism’ (CVE) is a new policy paradigm that aims to address structural and social conditions enabling recruitment and radicalization to violent extremism. Unlike counterterrorism approaches that rely on broad security legislation or heavily-militarized responses, CVE focuses on prevention by trying to alleviate underlying causes of injustice—endemic poverty, ethnic and religious tensions, and political marginalization—with the goal of building more conflict-resilient communities. CVE prioritizes a role for civil society, as these organizations are often viewed by communities as more credible than local governments or law enforcement. They are also better positioned to identify local-level drivers of violent extremism, and more suited to work with neglected groups through education, interfaith dialogues, and arts and sports activities. Ultimately, civil society empowers communities to better deflect extremist agendas. Yet because CVE combines development and security concerns, it exposes a wide gap between national and international agencies expected to implement the policy—development agencies and NGOs fall on one side, and military, police, and intelligence agencies on the other. In large part, this divide is an unintended consequence of the ‘Global War on Terror,’ which at times distorted development principles such as ‘Do No Harm’ (by diminishing credible CVE efforts through over-securitization); misappropriated development tools—including vaccination campaigns—for security ends; and blurred roles and responsibilities in delivering humanitarian aid. As the two sides now combine efforts to counter violent extremism, they struggle to overcome a legacy of mistrust. The divide also stems from cynicism from some in the security sector about CVE’s effectiveness, compounded by growing pressures on domestic security budgets. The result is an unwillingness to devote serious resources to CVE. Even where there is acceptance, there is impatience. Prevention-focused CVE efforts don’t deliver immediate results. Development agencies are equally hesitant about the strategy’s merits. Skeptics dismiss CVE over concern that it does not prioritize the most vulnerable populations, and many question the argument that poverty leads to violent extremism, citing a lack of substantive research. Others express concern that CVE does not address poverty enough, treating poverty alleviation as a welcome side effect instead of an end goal. Visiting Bangladesh, Mali, Nigeria, and other nations as executive director and advisor of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), we have seen firsthand how the uneasy relationship between security and development can hinder CVE efforts’ effectiveness. First, communities most at risk of radicalization are often overlooked. Security interventions tend to focus on populations and regions where violence is already rife; development interventions target the poorest. But at-risk communities such as refugees, transit migrants, and internally displaced persons may not fall into either category. Second, a CVE policy agenda has not yet translated into integrated programming or better coordination on the ground, creating an opportunity for security and development disagreements. Among other priorities, CVE efforts that provide positive economic and social alternatives for at-risk youth—in the form of education, vocational training, or arts and culture programs—are still addressed through intermittent, ad hoc projects, or subsumed in ongoing international development efforts. Third, proving CVE works is challenging for both sides. Standard development monitoring and evaluation efforts are difficult in insecure environments. For security agencies, it is hard to demonstrate that more training or deeper community engagement measurably reduce violent extremist threats. Without a real effort to fill the existing data gap, the CVE approach will remain unproven, ensuring that development and security communities remain in silos. As a step toward solving the development-security rift, a dedicated organization to lead CVE efforts on the global stage is needed. An internationally-brokered institution or multilateral body dedicated to CVE research, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation would go a long way in improving information sharing and eliminating redundancies, and could help to overcome mistrust and skepticism towards the overall CVE approach. Global leaders should consider this recommendation when they convene for high-level CVE meetings at the United Nations General Assembly in September. While ongoing CVE summitry and dialogue are important, effective on-the-ground actions still lag. CVE’s framework will only succeed if a more creative and integrated alliance between security and development sectors is forged.

This is a guest post by Claire Wilmot, an intern for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Program. She is a master of global affairs candidate at the University of Toronto. Canada’s reputation as a country that offers safe resettlement to refugees is in sharp decline. From 1961 until the early 2000s, Canadian immigration policy welcomed both immigrants and refugees, particularly from sub-Saharan Africa. However, Stephen Harper’s conservative government has made it increasingly difficult for refugees to resettle in Canada over the past decade. Nevertheless, in the lead up to the October 19 federal elections, immigration policy has not been the subject of public debate and most candidates have remained relatively silent. The timing of Canada’s refugee restrictions couldn’t be worse—in June, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that the largest number of people ever recorded, around 60 million, were now displaced. Of these, over a quarter hail from sub-Saharan Africa. As highlighted by the Mediterranean refugee crisis, many are willing to take extreme risks to escape their countries of origin. In the past, Canada has been receptive to refugees fleeing crises in the Horn of Africa. Canadians originating from Somalia make up the largest percentage of immigrants and refugees of African origin, at 26 percent. Worldwide, the UNHCR estimates one million Somalis are now refugees, and 1.1 million are internally displaced. Half a million Horn of Africa refugees have fled conflict in South Sudan, and 1.3 million South Sudanese who are displaced internally. There are now 350,000 refugees fleeing violence and repression in Eritrea, out of a total population of just six million. Kenya and Ethiopia, both coping with their own challenges of internal displacement, economic decline, and poor infrastructure, are hosting the majority of the Horn’s refugees. The Canadian High Commission in Nairobi processes the majority of applications for Canadian refugee resettlement by people fleeing violence and persecution in East, Central, and the Horn of Africa. Given the severity of civil conflicts occurring across the region, notably in South Sudan and Somalia, this office should be one of the most efficient in terms of processing visas. Instead, wait times for refugees from these countries are triple those from other regions. The average wait time for an individual fleeing persecution in Eritrea, or ethnic violence in Sudan, or the civil conflict in Somalia can expect to wait approximately 3 years for processing, with no guarantee they will be granted refugee status. By comparison, those seeking refugee resettlement from all other regions wait an average of nineteen months. Right now, about 12,000 refugees are admitted to Canada per year, a number the UNHCR has said falls short of Canada’s capacity to absorb refugees. Its hospitality towards refugees has drastically diverged from 1986, when the UNHCR bestowed upon the Canadian people its highest honor for services in support of the forcibly displaced, the Nansen Refugee Award. Human rights observers have condemned new legislation couched in Bill C-51, Canada’s controversial “anti-terror” omnibus, which would ease the government’s ability to detain and deport refugees, and suspend eligibility for social services for several months after arrival. Canada is also one of the few countries that has adopted Australia’s draconian policy of indefinite detention for some refugees who have entered irregularly, which has been internationally criticized. Under the Harper government, Canada has turned its back on refugees fleeing civil conflict in Africa and elsewhere. For many Canadians, compassionate refugee policy is not only necessary given the scale of the world’s refugee crisis—it’s a question of Canadian identity. Yet, thus far, refugee and immigration policy hasn’t featured as an issue in the upcoming elections.