Legacy of OSCE LIVE: Trained facilitators meet in Vienna to launch Community of Practice on Preventing Violent Extremism

To celebrate the multi-annual OSCE Leaders against Intolerance and Violent Extremism (LIVE) initiative, the OSCE Transnational Threats Department’s Action against Terrorism Unit (TNTD/ATU) hosted a 2-day in-person workshop for facilitators in Central Asia and South-Eastern Europe trained under the LIVE initiative in Vienna on 21-22 June.

The event provided a platform to launch and shape the LIVE Community of Practice (CoP), through which facilitators in Central Asia and South-Eastern Europe will continue to exchange good practices in preventing violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism (PVERLT) by engaging leaders of the civil society. Recently selected Leads of the LIVE Community of Practice discussed the role of the PVERLT network and how to effectively maintain and strengthen it. Training elements at the event provided an opportunity for the Community of Practice Leads to strengthen their peer coaching and mentorship skills with a focus on PVERLT.

While the event also marks the phase-out of the Secretariat’s multi-year stewardship of the initiative, TNTD/ATU will continue its steadfast support of the role of civil society in preventing violent extremism.

“Strengthening the promotion of human rights at the local level is an important element in PVE. This work becomes counterproductive if it does not pay due attention to respect for human rights and the rule of law. The OSCE plays a very important role in this. Regional cooperation in matters of security and ensuring human rights significantly increases the effectiveness of all stakeholders, including civil society, in preventing violent extremism”, highlighted Alexandr Klyushev, LIVE facilitator and Chair of the Association of Religious Organizations of Kazakhstan.

Enabling future cross-country and cross-regional interaction, the LIVE Community of Practice will offer an online space for LIVE facilitators to exchange experiences relevant to their ongoing work in preventing violent extremism. 

“Being part of the LIVE Community of Practice is a great opportunity for me in terms of knowledge and information sharing, networking, and exchanging good practices in preventing violent extremism. It is important to have such spaces to share challenges, have a dialogue on what are the innovative ways to address them, focusing on issues such as working together with communities, with young people, building media literacy or gender-responsive P/CVE”, said Erinda Bllaca from the Institute for Activism and Social Change (IANS) from Albania.

Selected female LIVE Community of Practice Leads have been invited to also become part of the WIN network for women in P/CVERLT in South-Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which is being established under the OSCE’s WIN project. It holds the potential to serve as a trust building mechanism between authorities and non-governmental actors and promote a comprehensive approach to P/CVERLT and as such complements the LIVE Community of Practice.

The two-day event was implemented under the LIVE initiative, a flagship training programme that seeks to build the resilience and capacity of communities in preventing violent extremism. Through tailored training courses, LIVE promotes context-specific efforts against violent extremism developed and led by women, youth, and community leaders. From 2018 to 2021, TNTD/ATU, in co-operation with the OSCE field operations, delivered a series of regional LIVE train-the-trainer seminars for South-Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and supported OSCE field operations in their implementation of national LIVE training courses. To date, over 700 individuals have been trained using the LIVE methodology.