Isel Ras, independent consultant, she is on Twitter @IselZyl.
Context of Violent Extremism and Prevention Efforts in Africa
In a recently published Global Terrorism Index 2023, sixty percent of the global fatalities resulting from violent extremist attacks have taken place in sub-Saharan Africa. Violent extremist groups, such as Al-Qaeda’s Jamaat Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimeen (JNIM) and the Islamic State affiliates in Africa, are continuously spreading propaganda encouraging individuals to join and often forcibly recruiting their members. Issues stemming from intercommunal violence and the lack of social cohesion create especially favorable circumstances from which to recruit.
Since the introduction of the United Nations’ Action Plan to Prevent Violent Extremism during the seventieth UN General Assembly in 2015, practitioners have taken good practices from various disciplines, such as psychology, psychiatry, public health, education, social work, and criminology. The most commended preventing violent extremism (PVE) approaches are development-based, as these intend to address the social drivers, such as lack of access to basic services (i.e. water, sanitation, medical services); physical isolation; and socio-economic marginalization (i.e. lack of access to education, employment and livelihood opportunities)—which are all considered major drivers of violent extremism on the African continent. Increasingly, the importance of integrating mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) into existing activities has been emphasized by practitioners and researchers, as these approaches are often neglected in PVE efforts.
MHPSS is crucial in the African context, since many communities across the continent have been exposed to longstanding insecurity and underdevelopment. Many African communities have been experiencing continuous trauma, resulting from insurgencies, terrorist and violent extremist activities, and political violence, as well as socio-economic, political, religious, and ethnic marginalisation, plus, at the most extreme, genocides and civil wars. The trauma has thus become an intergenerational issue, which is why many experts are recommending for the integration of MHPSS approaches in PVE programmes to address the deep-rooted trauma and grievances.
The UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), the UN’s highest-level humanitarian coordination forum, defines MHPSS as “multi-layered support to address psychological-nature problems (e.g. grief, severe mental disorder, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)) and social-nature problems (e.g. extreme poverty, political oppression, family separation, community destruction).”
According to the UN, mental health can be categorised into three types. The first type refers to issues that affected the community, which pre-date conflict, such as poverty, marginalisation, exclusion, and discrimination. The second type include social issues stemming from the conflict, such as family separation, disruption of social networks, breakdown of social cohesion and trust, and other forms of insecurity. The third type refers to social issues caused by post-conflict stabilization and humanitarian aid efforts, such as undermining of social identity and community structures.
Benefits of Integrating MHPSS into PVE Programming
In a 2020 report, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) noted that over 100 million people worldwide were in crucial need of protection assistance due to “ongoing conflict, violence, epidemics, and climate-related hostilities”.
‘Protection assistance’ refers to several types of mental health approaches, such as:
- Psychosocial support aiming to restore individuals’ and groups’ agency within their social fabric.
- Trauma counselling on an individual/ collective level
- Conflict transformation (inter-group therapy and counselling to mitigate grievances and hostilities)
- Post-traumatic growth and resilience building
- Integrative/ holistic therapy (aid in decision-making and understanding emotions)
According to the new edition of the UNDP’s Journey to Extremism in Africa, there are two types of factors behind voluntary recruitment or vulnerability to being recruited by violent extremist groups, namely social issues and behavioural issues. In order for PVE programming to be effective, these need to include activities that address both social and behavioural factors.
Addressing Social and Behavioral Drivers of Violent Extremism
‘Social factors’ refer to the social issues affecting an individual’s or community’s day-to-day life. According to UNDP, social factors include social, political, and economic marginalisation; poverty; unemployment; lack of access to basic services (such as education, medical, water and sanitation); lack of natural resources; and human rights abuses.
‘Behavioural factors’ refer to “the way in which a person behaves or reacts in response to a particular situation or stimulus”. Behavioural factors thus refer to how an individual or community reacts to the social drivers mentioned above. These behaviours could include feeling disconnected from one’s identity or ethnic or religious group; feeling distrustful of or hostile towards other ethnic and religious groups; experiencing strong feelings of hate, anger or vengeance towards a group.
A good example of programming to address behavioural factors would be the Kumakecha project implemented by an organisation called the Green String Network (GSN) in the coastal areas and in the capital of Kenya. Due to the high number of human rights abuses perpetrated under national counterterrorism interventions, the population developed a severe distrust in state security apparatuses. Moreover, certain ethnic and religious groups are especially targeted and are often victims of discrimination, threats, and intimidation. Kumekecha brought communities together to mend social cohesion and held groups sessions where communities had the opportunity to discuss their grievances with members of the police. These activities made significant progress in improving a sense of trust.
Facilitating the Rehabilitation and Reintegration Process
Under the PVE Action Plan, the UN only mentions the provision of “medical, psychosocial, and legal service support in communities to victims of violent extremist attacks, including incidents of sexual and gender-based violence”. Part of the prevention and countering of violent extremism (P/CVE), is the rehabilitation and reintegration (R&R) of former combatants. These programmes aim to encourage and incentivize violent extremists to defect or disengagement from the group. However, should these rehabilitation and reintegration programmes hope to succeed, all relevant stakeholders should be considered eligible for MHPSS, especially considering the trauma they experienced as part of the group.
An often-overlooked beneficiary group is the communities that are expected to accept back the former combatants. If the communities’ trauma and grievances are not adequately addressed, the chances are high that they may remain hostile to accepting back returnees. Shortly after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, international actors, as part of post-conflict stabilization efforts, provided mental health services to affected communities. MHPSS programming played a key role by bringing communities from different ethnic groups together to reconcile the antagonism and grievance that resulted from the violence. The MHPSS considerably improved social cohesion that ensured the peaceful co-existence of both ethnic groups to date.
Moreover, since MHPSS have featured in disciplines such as violence prevention and criminal offender rehabilitation interventions, PVE practitioners can take some of its proven good practices. For example, in criminal rehabilitation efforts, experts have realised the necessity of addressing the offender’s grievances and trauma which may cause the individual to re-offend, an issue which is very relevant in Africa where rates of collective and interpersonal violence is high.
Barriers to Integrating MHPSS in PVE Programming
To promote the inclusion of MHPSS approaches, practitioners need to be cognizant of the challenges and barriers to providing such services to individuals and groups.
In Africa, religion, ethnicity, culture, and gender play a pivotal role in a community’s identity. Various cultural, ethnic, religious, and gender-based stigmas often prevent individuals and groups from seeking or receiving mental health services. Additionally, some ethnic and religious groups may not consider incidents of gender-based violence, intermarital rape, or corporal punishment to be traumatic, thus the victims would not think to seek help for such violations. In the process of integrating MHPSS efforts into PVE programs, a localized approach is encouraged as local practitioners would naturally have a better understanding of the local contexts, language and the challenges they may face.
In September 2022, USAID and Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies (CHRIPS) hosted a two-day roundtable in Kenya, where regional experts and practitioners were invited to discuss the inclusion of MHPSS approaches in existing preventing violent extremism programmes. Experts discussed the challenges experienced by practitioners in delivering MHPSS support. ‘Logistical challenges’ was mentioned as the major barrier they face in providing mental health assistance to communities and beneficiaries of their projects. Logistical challenges can refer to the lack of or weak infrastructure, lack of information and research, as well as the lack of adequately trained practitioners and professionals to be able to implement and execute mental health interventions. As an example, in Nigeria, local and international practitioners implementing MHPSS activities in the northeast states, Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe, cited that due to ongoing conflict and insecurity, they have limited access to these affected areas.
Conclusion
The benefits that would result from the inclusion or prioritization of mental health and psychosocial support in preventing violent extremism activities are vast. By validating grievances and promoting agency, MHPSS could improve resilience to radicalization by building trust in security agencies and promoting community cohesion. In cases where social factors such as poverty, marginalization, and exclusion persist, MHPSS could equip communities in better dealing with issues. MHPSS could greatly contribute to PVE and more broadly stabilization and peacebuilding programs if previous traumas and grievances are addressed. Lastly, MHPSS activities should be designed to be context-specific, mindful of the challenges, such as stigmas, and should be implemented by local practitioners to ensure its sustainability.
European Eye on Radicalization aims to publish a diversity of perspectives and as such does not endorse the opinions expressed by contributors. The views expressed in this article represent the author alone.
