ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire – The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded $19.5 million over five years to Equal Access International (EAI) to strengthen community resilience against violent extremism in northern Côte d’Ivoire.
The project, Resilience for Peace (R4P), working with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), INDIGO-Côte d’Ivoire, and the University of Bouaké, will help at-risk Ivoirian border communities better counter violent extremism (CVE). R4P will create economic and civic empowerment opportunities, focusing on youth and women, through improvements in natural-resource management and government-service delivery and responsiveness. R4P will educate citizens and launch dialogue networks and town halls to cultivate whole-of-community trust.
“Perpetrators of violent extremism often prey on weak and marginalized communities,” said US ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire Richard Bell. “With R4P and through local partnerships, the United States aims to strengthen social, civic, and economic cohesion to make at-risk communities resilient to the threat of violent extremism.”
R4P was designed with inputs from INDIGO-Côte d’Ivoire, EAI, and NORC. EAI is an international non-governmental organization and a global leader in resilience, behavior change, and CVE programming in Africa and Asia. Initial activities will occur in the northern border areas of Côte d’Ivoire, and expand if needs arise elsewhere.
R4P complements other USAID CVE activities in Côte d’Ivoire including the Accountability for Development project (implemented by EAI) and the Political Transition and Inclusion project (implemented by the National Democratic Institute).
