Strengthening the Role of Civil Society Organizations (CSO) Working on Prevention of Violent Extremism in Tajikistan
Preventing Violent Extremism in Central Asia (PREVECA) Funded by the German Foreign Office Tajikistan Component
Strengthening the Role of Civil Society Organizations (CSO) Working on Prevention of Violent Extremism in Tajikistan
Creation of a CSO Network
Background
Tajikistan is facing threats from extremism and terrorism. With the current Strategy against extremism and terrorism 2021-2025, based on the previous Strategy from 2016-2020, the Government of Tajikistan has shown resolve to pursue efforts of preventing and countering violent extremism and terrorism. The General Prosecutor’s Office has been assigned the task to coordinate the implementation of the Strategy and its Action Plan.
The Strategy includes both preventive and countering measures and emphasizes the relevance of contributions from numerous government agencies as well as civil society organizations in order to be successfully implemented. Despite the comprehensive understanding in the Strategy, the debate on the topic has not yet reached wider parts of the public. Awareness and knowledge about the Strategy and about ongoing programs supporting the Government Strategy are still limited, especially among civil society actors and the public. Existing experience and expertise among civil society actors is loosely scattered in small circles of experts and practitioners, who often don’t exchange experience or systematically cooperate with each other. Moreover, civil society organizations often lack both subject matter knowledge as well as managerial and operational capacities to assume their role. In addition, trust and suitable formats of cooperation between state and non-state actors need improvement.
At the same time, the need and necessity for civil society actors to be actively involved in implementing the Strategy, is growing. The implementation of the Strategy and its action plan require a whole of government and a whole of society approach, where CSO have a crucial role to play.
Goals and Objectives
Against the above stated background, the overall goal of GIZ PREVECA TJ project was to strengthen the role and capacities of local civil society organizations in implementing the Strategy. The project pursed the following objectives in particular:
- systematically identify local CSO with experience and expertise in PVE/CVE;
- foster network building among local civil society actors;
- improve subject matter related knowledge and understanding of local CSO;
- strengthen mutual understanding and cooperation between relevant government agencies and civil society actors.
Approaches and Activities
PREVECA commenced work along this line of action shortly after its kick-off in March 2022.
1.Mapping of civil society organizations
In order to gain a sound overview of the CSO landscape in Tajikistan, a local expert was hired in May 2022 to come up with a list of relevant CSO. Based on this preliminary list, parallel inquiries with other international partners and individual local experts were conducted. Finally, a local partner CSO, Eurasia Foundation Central Asia (EFCA) was identified with whom the list of relevant local CSO was further enriched.
These efforts resulted in a comprehensive data matrix, including not only names and contact details of organizations, but also information on their geographical areas of activity, fields of expertise and experience of working with international agencies among others.
Given the scattered information about CSO in Tajikistan, the objective of this first step was to collate information about civil society organizations with relevant experience and expertise in the field of preventing and countering violent extremism and terrorism. The resulting matrix is a working document, being regularly updated by GIZ PREVECA TJ, which can rightly be claimed to be the first such information base in Tajikistan.
It serves as a knowledge base for Tajik government agencies as well as international donors and agencies in need for local implementing partners for programs and projects. The matrix was handed over to the General Prosecutor’s Office on 27.12.2023. Several information requests by international agencies, such as the OSCE or USAID, could already be answered in the course of 2023.
2. Foster networking among local CSO
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The objective of this line of action was not only to systematically link the scattered organizations and experts throughout the country, but to create a joint understanding of the role of civil society organizations in implementing the national Strategy and to encourage the growth of a community of best practices. For this purpose, GIZ PREVECA TJ partnered with the local civil society organization EFCA. Based on former work of EFCA, the project and EFCA jointly systematized the effort to reach out to relevant CSO all over the country. A series of five round table meetings in Bokhtar, Dushanbe, Gharm, Khujand and Kulob was held in 2023, where CSO from surrounding areas were invited. Basic information on the Strategy was presented at these meetings. Followed by an introduction of the idea of a network, a memorandum for creating a formal CSO network was presented and discussed.
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Currently, the memorandum has been signed by 57 CSO as of December 2023. The network is led by EFCA and governed by a board, where each region is represented by one CSO. No round table meeting could be held in Gorno Badakhshon, but the network is explicitly open to CSO from the region. |
3. Capacity building and training
The creation of a network was a useful first step, but all involved were in agreement that the network would only thrive if it offered added value to its member organizations.
As a first step to fill the network with life, EFCA requested members about their expected services and activities. Among others, a majority of respondents pointed to the need for enhancing subject matter capacities, project management capacities and improvement of their public relations approach in order to enable them to better attract donor commissions.
With the aim to create an even level of subject matter expertise on the topic of prevention and countering violent extremism among the members of the network, the project has planned and organized four trainings, covering CSO from all over the country. The first two trainings were held in November and December 2023 in Dushanbe with participants from Bokhtar, Dushanbe, Gharm and Kulob. The remaining CSO will participate in two trainings in Khujand in the first quarter of 2024.
The two-day trainings included an in-depth introduction to the topic and the national Strategy on the first day, followed by a basic introduction on proposal writing and financial management on the second day.
Moreover, a training on IT security and public relations for interested CSO is being planned for the first quarter of 2024. Among others, participating CSO will learn to draft information to be published on the website of the Secretariat for coordinating the implementation of the Strategy under: www.ct-secretariat.tj.
| In addition to these activities strengthening the CSO network and thereby the capacities of CSO through trainings, GIZ PREVECA TJ pursues the approach to direct capacity building of their partner organizations in the context joint project activities. This is a subtle, day to day approach including methodological hints, coaching by example and often implies a mutual learning discourse. |  |
4. Strengthen cooperation between government agencies and civil society actors
Trust and mutual understanding of the respective roles, responsibilities and capacities among government and civil society actors is crucial in order to enable a fruitful and complementary interaction and cooperation and to make best use of the country’s potential and resources in preventing and countering extremism and terrorism.
Experience has shown that formal meetings where actors present their mandates, approaches and activities, can achieve only little in improving this trust and mutual understanding. Therefore, GIZ PREVECA TJ has incorporated this aspect as a cross-cutting approach into all its practical implementing activities with local CSO partners. Based on and with the help of the good standing and relationship with its main partner organization, the General Prosecutor’s Office, GIZ PREVECA TJ activities serve as platforms through which our implementing CSO partners systematically build relations and networks with local state authorities and vice versa.
This approach is limited in outreach, but very effective because the relations thereby built between state actors and CSO have a good chance of enduring the project’s activity time span and gain a quality of stand-alone networks over time. Through this approach, the community of state and non-state experts is being slowly but steadily extended and deepened.
Another aspect of this approach is the composition of trainer teams in all training activities. By working with teams of at least two, ideally three trainers with different backgrounds, the project brings together scientific, CSO and governmental perspectives. This is not only helpful for conveying the underlying message on the importance of whole of government and whole of society approaches in preventing violent extremism, but also for establishing a better understanding of the different perspectives among the community of experts.
Last but not least, GIZ PREVECA TJ is preparing to conduct project activities in 2024 in the context of strengthening resilience of youth against extremism, which include explicit activities at local level aimed at confidence building and enhanced cooperation between state and civil society actors.
Outcomes
The CSO matrix, resulting from the various stock-taking efforts of PREVECA project, lists 130 CSO which work on or around the topic of preventing and countering violent extremism in Tajikistan all over the country. Around half of them responded to several rounds of written request for information. The subsequent CSO round tables which were conducted to kick-start the CSO network, gathered more than altogether 100 CSO from all over the country, 57 of which have to date signed the memorandum of the network.
Measuring outcomes of project efforts in terms of ownership and active engagement by the CSO, learning progress, actual networking or improvement of capacities and performance, has not been possible so far due to the fact that the process is still ongoing. After completing the follow-up trainings, feedback sheets will be systematically evaluated.
For the time being, it can be stated that the mere fact of putting the topic of strengthening CSO on the agenda and conducting the CSO round table events has had a positive effect, as attention for the role of CSO has risen.
Several local TV channels reported on the CSO round table events. One feature of an hour in a local TV channel not only gave CSO representatives the floor but was accompanied by an in-depth subject-matter discussion on preventing extremism and terrorism. The number of CSO present at meetings summoned by international agencies on or around the topic of preventing and countering extremism and terrorism, is steadily growing. Last but not least, the challenge of rehabilitating and reintegrating returnees from Syria and Iraq has put the important role of CSO to play in this context in the limelight, also from the Government’s side. This plays hand in hand with the bottom-up initiative of PREVECA project. In addition, other international agencies such as UNDP have also started to conduct project activities aimed at explicitly strengthening the role of CSO in 2023 and have consulted with PREVECA project in advance, building on its existing efforts. Finally, the General Prosecutor’s Office has referred international agencies to PREVECA on several occasions to build on and learn from the CSO network building efforts.
