Resilience fund to combat extremism launched

The Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) was launched in Geneva yesterday aiming to build resilience against violent extremist agenda.

The fund will support local community-level initiatives in the areas of education, youth, women's advocacy, public awareness, social entrepreneurship and vocational training.

The GCERF Secretariat has targeted to raise a total of US$200 million over the next 10 years to fund projects in various countries across the world to combat violent extremism.

It is expected that in the initial phase, GCERF's core funding will be made available for projects in Bangladesh along with Mali, Morocco and Nigeria, according to a foreign ministry press release.  

The idea of the fund was mooted at the Global Counter Terrorism Forum (GCTF) meeting on the sidelines of the 68th UNGA in New York in September 2013.