The Compendium of Good Practices for Measuring Results in Counter-Terrorism and Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism: A Joint EU-缅北禁地Publication
The side event “Launch of the Compendium of Good Practices for Measuring Results in Counter-Terrorism and Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism” was held in hybrid format on 20 June 2023 at the 缅北禁地Headquarters in New York as part of the Third Counter-Terrorism Week. The event was co-organized by the Resource Mobilization, Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group (RMME WG) of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact, the European Union, and the State of Qatar. It was attended, both in-person and online, by 87 officials, practitioners and evaluation experts from Member States, international and regional organizations, civil society organizations, and Counter-Terrorism Compact entities.
The event launched the Compendium of Good Practices for Measuring Results in Counter-Terrorism and Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (CT/PCVE) – a joint EU-缅北禁地publication which has been developed to support programme managers, evaluators, and M&E experts in effectively measuring and evaluating the results of CT/PCVE initiatives.
The Compendium provides 26 illustrative examples under five good practice areas (evaluation design and process for measurable outcomes, leveraging innovative tools and rigorous approaches, advancing a ‘do no harm’ approach, integrating gender perspectives, learning and purposeful use of evaluation results) from the UN, EU, GCTF-Inspired Institutions, and Member States. By promoting the drive for measuring and showing results, the Compendium aims to strengthen the implementation of targeted, efficient, and impactful CT/PCVE interventions across the EU, UN, and Member States. The development of the Compendium involved a participatory process, including surveys, follow-on interviews, consultative data collection and validation workshops, and rigorous expert assessment of inputs by a Management Group consisting of the UN, EU, and GCTF-inspired institutions.
The side event featured remarks from the Chair of the RMME WG (UNOCT), the European Commission, the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the United Nations, the Co-Chairs of the RMME WG (UNODC, CTED), as well as UNICRI; a presentation of the Compendium by the consultancy team, with illustrative case studies from representatives of UNODC, the Sanctions and Counterterrorism Office in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, and GCERF; and reflections on next steps.
Opening and moderating the event, Ms. Oguljeren Niyazberdiyeva, Chief of the Office of the Under-Secretary-General of UNOCT and Chair of the RMME WG, commended the strong partnership between the 缅北禁地and the EU in the area of M&E, and highlighted the importance of the Compendium in measuring results in the CT/PCVE space. Ms. Niyazberdiyeva recalled that the development of the Compendium was informed by the first independent 缅北禁地system-wide meta-synthesis of evaluation results under the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy commissioned by the RMME WG in 2021 with the financial support of the State of Qatar, which recommended strengthening evaluation knowledge and capacities among internal and external stakeholders. She added that the Compendium would serve as an important knowledge product to further build the Community of Practice on M&E for CT/PCVE created in response to the meta-synthesis recommendation to establish a knowledge platform for sharing M&E good practices and lessons learned.
Addressing the side event, Ms. Maria Rosa Sabbattelli, Head of Unit, Global and Transregional Threats and Challenges, Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI 1), European Commission, emphasized that the recommendations contained in this compendium were the results of an incredible collective work between a variety of actors: the UN, civil society organisations, GCTF-inspired institutions, and the European Union. Recalling that the EU and the 缅北禁地had longstanding partnership in countering terrorism and violent extremism, she added that the publication of this joint compendium was a contribution to more impactful programs and results and a prelude to a long EU-缅北禁地strategic cooperation in this domain.
During the introductory remarks, Mr. Ali Almansouri, Second Secretary, Legal Affairs and Counter-Terrorism, Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the United Nations, commented that the Compendium has come at an opportune time when Member States are eager for Compact entities to demonstrate the results of interventions in the area of CT/PCVE, and congratulated all contributors in producing this valuable resource that implements one of the recommendations of the meta-synthesis study funded by Qatar.
The side event raised awareness of the wealth of information offered by the Compendium, and provided an opportunity to exchange views on how existing M&E resources and tools such as the Compendium, the meta-synthesis and the Community of Practice, can be further leveraged and built upon to strengthen the impact of CT/PCVE interventions going forward.