This research report uses analysis of data from Mercy Corps’ Collective Resilience Against Extremism (CREATE) program to help fill two key evidence gaps:
- What matters for reducing vulnerability to VEO recruitment, and
- What activities and approaches are most effective in increasing resilience among the highest-risk individuals.
The CREATE program operates in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, and seeks to demonstrate how to identify and engage with at-risk individuals and how interventions that provide holistic packages of personal guidance, knowledge, and access to opportunities can be an effective means of reducing their vulnerability to radicalization and recruitment. The evidence provides new insights on how social and economic interventions can build resilience to VE recruitment, which has implications for how and when practitioners should engage in P/CVE programs and how to tailor programs to more effectively flip risk of recruitment into resilience.