The role of youth in countering violent extremism and promoting peace

I was recently invited to attend the Regional Youth Summit on countering violent extremism (CVE) in Nigeria, a truly transformative experience that I will carry on with me to Mali and that I will share with my community. The summit brought together a powerful group of committed young leaders from the region to engage and strengthen national and regional networks of an inspiring and active youth focused on addressing violent extremism in their own communities and provide an opportunity to share experiences, challenges, and best practices to prevent and to counter violent extremism across the Sahel region. This event was a platform to showcase the contributions of young innovators engaged in peace building efforts and the achievement at the grassroots levels. A total of a 100 participants from Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria attended to the summit hosted by Search in Common Ground in partnership with UNIMAID (University of Maiduguri) with the support of the North East Regional Initiative and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The Regional Youth Summit on countering violent extremism (CVE) brought together young leaders and changemakers, youth-led organizations, experts, policy-makers, practitioners, non-governmental organizations; governments and UN entities to agree on a common vision and roadmap to partner with the youth in preventing and countering violent extremism and building lasting peace in the region.

I will never forget what President Barack Obama said at the Leaders' Summit on Countering Violent Extremism held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on 29 September. "Ideologies are not defeated by guns, but with new ideas" he said. "We have to work together to build diverse, tolerant, inclusive societies to defeat violent extremism." These words resonated with my heart and with my beliefs.

And, this is exactly what we are doing in Mali. We are working together and this summit was indeed a great gathering of brilliant ideas by brilliant and inspiring young peacebuilders and leaders that I hope I will stay connected and be able to work with to build a better future for our generations to come. I am a true believer that if we "the youth" are given the right resources and opportunities, we will be able to work together in our communities, to prevent conflict of any kind, to counter violent extremism and to continue to promote peace.

Please read the full content of my presentation, "The Root Causes of Violent Extremism in Mali", by clicking HERE!

Also, here are some good sources on Counter Violent Extremism Strategies that can be useful:

UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/action.html USAID Policy on Countering Violent Extremism https://www.usaid.gov/countering-violent-extremism

On behalf of our Malian Youth Delegation, we "Thank You" for organizing a great summit in such a historical time for humanity. We thank you for believing in us, for giving us a voice and a chance to make our significant contributions for world peace. We are looking forward to see you next year so we can share more stories of success.

These are some of the photos captured by the organizers. Thank you again!