Completed Project

Project Description

The Mitchell Group (TMG) Inc. led the design of an innovative project at the nexus of resilience and countering violent extremism (CVE) for USAID/Senegal’s Sahel Regional Officer (SRO). The regional project is Sahel-wide and focuses on addressing key underlying structural grievances driving many youths towards violent extremism in the Sahel. The three largest underlying drivers for the Sahel were found to be related to poor governance, lack of economic opportunities and underlying psycho-social factors. This new 5-year regional project, designed by TMG with inputs and guidance from USAID field staff, focuses on addressing these drivers in a substantive manner to support a new, broader, holistic approach to countering-violent extremism in the Sahel that embraces development approaches alongside more traditional CVE approaches. A system’s approach was leveraged for this project design as both TMG and USAID realized the inter-connectedness and complexity of the vulnerabilities and drivers of violent extremism and resilience in the Sahel. Collaboration, learning, and adapting (CLA) was placed at the heart of the project’s programmatic approach, which needed to be inherently flexible and iterative based on dynamic learning.

Some key accomplishments include:

• Contextual analysis and extensive desk review conducted to better inform project design based on research and evidence to date
• Inclusive stakeholder meetings held to gather all relevant inputs to better inform the project design
• Draft presentation of project design presented to mission director and USAID/Senegal stakeholders
• Sahel Development Partnership (SDP) Project Appraisal Document (PAD) drafted, finalized, and approved by the USAID/Senegal mission

Project Links:

https: //www.usaid.gov/sahel-regional