Mapping and plugging-in on Preventing Violent Extremism and Grassroots Peacebuilding Initiatives in Lebanon

• Forschungsstelle: AFM
• Projektnummer: 632770
• Projekttitel Englisch: Mapping and plugging-in on Preventing Violent Extremism and Grassroots Peacebuilding Initiatives in Lebanon

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

The Project will provide the Swiss government with state-of-the-art support in contextual analysis and identification of strategie "niches" in two key fields of intervention for Switzerland in Lebanon: Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) and Promoting local, grassroots Peacebuilding initiatives.

Synaps, a Lebanese NGO, shares Switzerland's assessment that these two Clusters of issues have a particular importance in the Lebanese context, since it has a lively civil society with a myriad of local initiatives and the issue of PVE is highly relevant to the context. Some of the major interests of the mapping are to reflect possible connections between them, by evaluating current grass-roots initiatives (some of them already supported by Switzerland), identifying niches and overlaps and linking them to the international community and Track I actors in Lebanon. This can lay the fundament for future Swiss programming and be of use to any other actor interested in these dynamics. The geographical focus is on areas where Switzerland has been concentrating its programs, namely Northern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley.

Projektziele (Englisch)

Theory of change: Resources are misspent in Lebanon through attempting to engineer top-down, externally-driven change in environments where transformation must happen organically. Issues affecting Lebanon in relation to violent extremism and local conflict dynamics need to be effectively identified, mapped, analysed, enhanced, connected, and monitored before "assistance" programmes are launched. Assistance programmes in the field of PVE and local Peacebuilding should be grounded in credible, relevant and extensive fieldwork feeding into local authorities' and International donor strategies. For Switzerland as a donor, as an active member of the international donor community and as a partner of Lebanon, it is important to be able to rely on solid field work that includes analysis, networking and direct involvement of key players and decision-makers. By involving these actors, the project can trigger the development of locally-owned definitions for "violent extremism" and local conflict resolution mechanisms and allow Lebanon to gain ownership on development policies currently made on their behalf by the international donor community. It will help Switzerland providing informed input to key political processes such as the development of a UN PVE strategy for Lebanon or the development of a Lebanese PVE national action plan.