Empowering Youth and Promoting Tolerance: Practical Approaches to Countering Terrorist Radicalization and Terrorism (UAE)

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) and Hedayah co-organized a regional high-level conference on Empowering Youth and Promoting Tolerance: Practical Approaches to Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The Conference provided an opportunity to discuss initiatives and action plans to strengthen resilience against radicalization leading to terrorism, with a focus on youth empowerment and tolerance at the national and regional levels. It is the sixth in a series of regional conferences to be held around the UN High-Level Conference for Heads of Counter-Terrorism Agencies of Member States.

Bringing together over 300 representatives from League of Arab State countries, and several from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, the Conference encouraged civil society organizations, youth representatives, religious and interfaith actors and leading think tanks to exchange views and share experiences from the Middle East and North Africa. It featured three plenary thematic sessions, including a:

• High-Level Panel on Empowering Youth for P/CVE Conducive to Terrorism;
• High-Level Panel on Promoting Tolerance for P/CVE; and
• Youth Circle on ‘Enhancing partnerships between governments, youth, community and religious actors to promote the values of tolerance and strengthen resilience to terrorist narratives’.

Overall, the Conference further strengthened international cooperation to prevent and counter the evolving threat of terrorism.