By Zubaida Baba Ibrahim
Softer approaches like generating organic counter-narratives can be essential to preventing radicalisation and violent extremism more than using kinetic forces of the police and the military, a security expert has said.
“This approach of deploying security operatives to confront criminal actors is usually the approach by state actors but there are also soft approaches to preventing violent extremism,” said Ali Richard, the Project Manager of Engaging Borders Africa.
Engaging Borders Africa is a project under the STRADA Development Initiative that gathers a range of expertise cutting across African literature, security studies, as well as the civic space with the shared aim of changing the ways young people understand radicalisation, violent extremism, and disinformation, which are key feeders of conflict and terror in Africa.
Richard said the project targets writers and journalists who will popularize diverse counter-narratives and demonstrate the effectiveness of these soft approaches across African countries where extremism and radicalism have taken roots.
