Mid-Term Evaluation of Three Countering Violent Extremism Projects
Beneficiaries of USAID’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) projects in East Africa have a demonstrated advantage over comparison groups on a host of variables known to be drivers of violent extremism. In a survey of almost 1,500 ethnic Somali youths in Somalia and Kenya administered in November and December 2012, full beneficiaries of three USAID CVE projects were compared to similar numbers of partial beneficiaries (mostly program drop outs or less involved participants) and a comparison group of non-beneficiaries. This quantitative data forms the core of the evaluation.
In Kenya, the programs evaluated included the Kenya Transition Initiative – Eastleigh (KTI-E), administered in the Somali enclave of Nairobi of Eastleigh; and the Garissa Youth project (GYouth), administered in the predominantly Somali city of Garissa in Kenya’s North Eastern Province. In Somalia, the evaluation focused on the Somali Youth Livelihoods Program (SYLP), with data collected in Hargeisa, Bosaso and Mogadishu. Survey questions were grouped into thematic areas representing factors that push or pull individuals into violent extremism as identified by USAID.
The five survey thematic areas, referred to in short form as engagement, efficacy, youth associations, identity
and violence, are the primary organizing principles behind the data analyzed in this evaluation. The development hypothesis of the CVE programs is that a decreased risk of extremism will result when the enabling environment for extremism is reduced, as measured by these thematic areas (or core indicators). While the three programs evaluated here have different emphases and are at different phases of implementation, it can be stated that USAID CVE programs are showing results in those areas, namely engagement, and to a lesser degree efficacy, support for youth associations and identity, where evidence shows there is the greatest need. The results were not noticeable with regard to violence in the name of Islam, a thematic area in which the need, at least as measured in this survey, is not as great.