Khalid Koser is the Executive Director for the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, which is a public-private partnership. The Fund was established to serve as the first global effort to support local, community-level initiatives aimed at strengthening resilience against violent extremist agendas.
Over the last couple of years there have been a few important milestones that have integrated prevention as part of a comprehensive response to violent extremism and terrorism. The United Nations Secretary-General’s 2016 Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism is the most notable, along with a series of global and regional summits on preventing violent extremism (PVE). Also noteworthy is the recognition by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) of PVE as eligible to be counted as Official Development Assistance (ODA). The relevance of peace and security more widely to the global development agenda had already been framed in the Sustainable Development Agenda, especially SDG 16.