Preventing violent extremism in Lebanon: experience from a Danish-Lebanese partnership / Manni Crone, Khadije Nasser

The role of local actors, including municipal governance bodies and civil society, in the implementation of effective prevention programmes, as well as the need to strengthen local resilience capacities has been highlighted in the 2015 UN Secretary-General’s Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism and EU regional strategy for Syria and Iraq from 2016. Considering the vital role of local actors, this paper discusses the challenges and opportunities that were identified in the set up of a municipality-led prevention network in Lebanon. The local prevention in Lebanon is inspired by the Danish prevention model, which around 2014 became internationally known as the “Aarhus model”. The establishment of a local PVE programme in Lebanon is the initial result of an ongoing bilateral Lebanese-Danish partnership funded by the Danish Government’s Peace and Stabilisation Fund and piloted since 2016 in three Lebanese municipalities: Saida, Tripoli and Majdal Anjar.