Violent extremism remains a persistent threat to peace and stability in the Sahel and Maghreb regions. It continues to cause death, injury and the destruction of property, disrupting the lives of ordinary citizens in the process. Nearly 6,000 people have lost their lives in ongoing conflicts between 2015 and April 2020 in nine countries of the regions, namely: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia. The Sahel region was particularly badly hit, with Burkina Faso and Mali seeing a marked increase in attacks since 2018, while, in the Maghreb region, many youth were radicalized and left their country to join the ranks of foreign terrorist fighters.

In 2015, the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), with the generous support of European Commission Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR), launched the Pilot Project on Countering Radicalization and Violent Extremism in the Sahel-Maghreb – an ambitious project that sought to work with civil society organizations in nine countries of the region in order to pilot and evaluate small-scale interventions of varying nature, scope and duration. The ultimate goal of this Pilot Project was to better understand what works and what does not work in terms of strengthening the resilience of local communities to radicalization and violent extremism.

After five years of implementation, with more than 80 interventions, more than 500 activities and more than 23,000 individuals involved, UNICRI and DG NEAR are proud to present the results of this research. Not only does this represent an effort to organize and share a large amount of primary data collected, but it is also a way to share the main lessons learned and provide evidence-based recommendations to the international community to help inform more effective future interventions.