What drives people to violent extremism? asks a report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
“Journey to Extremism in Africa: Pathways to Recruitment and Disengagement” draws from interviews with nearly 2,200 people in eight countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan. More than 1,000 interviewees are former members of violent extremist groups, whether voluntary or forced recruits. Religion came as the third reason for joining, cited by 17 percent — a 57 per cent decrease from the findings of a similar 2017 report. Religion comes behind joining with family and friends; and employment. A majority of recruits admitted to having limited knowledge of religious texts. The report contrasts all this with how the ‘post-9/11 global discourse on terrorism approached religious beliefs and ideologies as intrinsic drivers’ of extremism.
Nearly half of the respondents cited a specific trigger event pushing them to join violent extremist groups, while most, 71 percent pointing to human rights abuse, often conducted by state security forces, as ‘the tipping point’.
UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner in a foreword called for ‘renewed international focus, integrative solutions and long-term investments to address the underlying drivers of violent extremism’. On publication he said: “Sub-Saharan Africa has become the new global epicentre of violent extremism with 48 per cent of global terrorism deaths in 2021. This surge not only adversely impacts lives, security and peace, but also threatens to reverse hard-won development gains for generations to come. Security-driven counter-terrorism responses are often costly and minimally effective, yet investments in preventive approaches to violent extremism are woefully inadequate. The social contract between states and citizens must be reinvigorated to tackle root causes of violent extremism.”
In the foreword to the document, on the root causes of violent extremism, Steiner suggested that it’s possible to address the drivers that lead to violent extremism. “Yet investment in prevention and sustaining peace continues to fall short. In fact, as evidenced by this report, investments in securitised and reactive approaches continue to be on the rise, crowding out underfunded, but much needed, efforts on prevention and peace-building.”
As for what pushes or pulls recruits to disengage, interviewees most often cited unmet expectations, particularly financial expectations, and lack of trust in the group’s leadership as their main reasons for leaving.
The freely downloadable 150-page report is part of a series of three on prevention of violent extremism. “Dynamics of Violent Extremism in Africa: Conflict Ecosystems, Political Ecology, and the Spread of the Proto-State” looks at the dynamics of violent extremist groups in Sub-Saharan Africa.
See also https://feature.undp.org/interrupting-the-journey-to-extremism/.
The 2017 report’s focus was on ‘peripheral areas and borderlands’, vulnerable to violent extremism, where borders are porous and the state is remote.
