Launch of the Nairobi Toolkit on Addressing the Nexus Between Climate Change and Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism (Counter-Terrorism Week Side Event)

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I think we should make a start.
We're a few minutes behind schedule because the last event, I think, finished at 1:00.
Thank you for being here for the second launch of the Nairobi toolkit on addressing the nexus between climate change and violent extremism conducive to terrorism.
You're going to hear more about this report, which was actually launched a couple of weeks ago in Brussels at the coordinating committee meeting of the Global Coterrorism Forum.
As you can see, this was an important piece of work supported very generously by the governments of Germany and Kenya and undertaken by the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, where I'm the Executive Director and my colleague Andre will tell you more about the tool kit in a moment.
I'm here simply to moderate.
So let me start by introducing our opening remarks.
We'll hear first from Mr.
Keegan, who's a good friend of GSF and the Director General of the National Counterrorism Center NCTC in Kenya.
He'll be followed by miss Gabriella Scale Again, is a good friend of ours now at GEF.
She's head of Counterterrorism Organized Crime Department at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.
Then third, as an opening speaker, we have my dear friend and colleague, doctor Andre Alvesos who is Head of Performance and Impact at GCF and is predicting that Brazil is going to win the Word Cup, aren't you Andre.
So please, Kenya, over to you.
Thanks, Git, Excellency, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, Jumbo.
Thank you, good students.
Sana.
It is a privilege to stand before you today as we mark the relaunch of the Nairobi Toolkit.
These achievement represents the collaboration and shared determination to confront the intertwined challenges of climate change and violent extremism.
Through dialogue, workshops, and the invaluable input of government, civil society, academia, and practitioners, we have shaped a resource that is practical, inclusive, and forward looking.
Today, we move decisively from discussion to implementation, unveiling a guide designed to strengthen resilience in communities most at risk.
I extend heartfelt gratitude to our culture, Germany, for their unwavering partnership and the global community Engagement and Resilience Fund, GSP whose expertise ensure this process remained participatory and evidence based.
I also salute the diverse voices that contributed their perspectives and thus help to ground the toolkit in both research and lived realities.
Ladies and gentlemen, we recognize that terrorism does not emerge in a vacuum.
It thrives where instability, grievances, and vulnerabilities persist climate change, with its disruptive effects on livelihood, resources, and social cohesion has become an increasingly critical factor, Rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, droughts and floods intensify competition over scarce resources, weaken governance, and create opportunities for extremist groups to exploit.
In countries where agriculture sustains community life, climate shocks are not only environmental, they are observed threats to stability, threats to security, and threats to development.
Adré these nexus is therefore vital for safeguarding peace and sustainable progress.
The Nairobi Toolkit is our collective answer.
It bridges climate resilience with security, offering clear strategies for integrating environmental considerations into prevention efforts.
It emphasizes local ownership through communities driving their own resilience.
It underscores inclusivity by bringing youth and gender perspectives to the forefront, and it equips practitioners with tools for monitoring and evaluation, ensuring that lessons are learned and approaches are refined.
Most importantly, it challenges institutions to broaden their understanding of security, recognizing that environmental stress can fuel instability and ages closer collaboration with climate and development actors.
As we launch this toolkit, I call on all of us to translate reflection into our action.
This resource is designed to be applied, to be tested, and to be improved.
It's true impact will be realized when governments embed its recommendation in policy, when practitioners use its modules to design programs, and when communities apply it its guidance to strengthen resilience.
We must invest in training, capacity building, and partnerships that enable these insights to take root in fragile contexts, and we must commit to tracking its outcomes, sharing experiences, and continuously enhancing our approaches.
Finally, let us view this launch as the beginning of a new chapter.
The consultations depend our understanding.
The toolkit now empowers us to act.
Kenya, as co chair of this initiative, reaffirms its commitment to advancing this agenda within the GCTF framework, working closely with Germany and all partners to ensure that the toolkit remains dynamic and impactful.
Together, we can transform this resource into a lasting contribution to global peace and security, helping communities withstand the pressures of climate change, reducing vulnerabilities exploited by extremists and building pathways to resilience and stability.
I thank you all for your dedication, for the spirit of collaboration that has brought us this far.
Let us ensure the Nairobi Toolkit becomes a driver of meaningful action in the years ahead, leaving behind a legacy of resilience, cooperation, and hope.
Thank you very much, Santa Sana.
Thank you, Director General.
Let me just repeat three words that you said that I think are fundamentally important.
Firstly, participatory.
This is a participatory piece of research.
Secondly, evidence based.
It's very important that anything we do is based on evidence, and this is a deep piece of academic work collecting evidence from around the world.
Thirdly, I agree with you, Director General, that the real value of this piece of work is in its application, and that I think is the next step for all of us.
Let's now hear if we could from the other co chair, Germany, please.
Thank you very much, Excellencies, dear colleagues.
It is a pleasure to participate at the side event on the Nairobi toolkit on addressing the nexus between climate change and violent extremism conducive to terrorism.
The toolkit is the product of the global counterterrorism Forums initiative on climate change and violent extremism initiated by our esteemed colleague, Kenya.
Germany in 2024.
Supported by our implementing partner, GSEerv, it has been thoroughly developed over the course of two years.
It is the result of seven workshops that offered opportunities for rich discussions with experts from various fields from the security, climate, environmental protection, peace building, humanitarian response, and development fields.
Climate change is not a direct cause of violent extremism.
However, as the toolkit shows in all its complexity, it exacerbates well known drivers from resource scarcity and livelihood insecurity to governance challenges and community tensions.
At the same time, violent extremism and terrorist groups, which have caused severe harm and human suffering in many regions actively undermine the resilience of communities to cope with climate related risks.
Toolkit does not only help to demonstrate the complex nexus between climate change and violent extremism, it also offers guidance to policymakers and practitioners for responding to interlinked challenges.
Going forward, the implementation of the toolkits recommendations will be essential.
Allow me to highlight a few examples of Germany's efforts.
First, advancing innovative approaches.
We're working with our International Climate Initiative, one of Germany's climate finance instruments to increase funding for fragile and conflict affected settings.
Secondly, promoting cross sectoral coordination and dialogue.
We aim to raise awareness for the nexus.
We did so during the coordination committee meeting in Brussels recently of the Global counterterrorism Forum, and we will also bring together a variety of actors during the Berlin Climate Security Conference in October this year.
Thirdly, supporting capacity building.
We would like to work with GSEv and partners to build technical expertise and learn from practical experience.
We hope that UN member states and also GTF, GCTF inspired institutions and other partners will join us in implementing the toolkit and contribute to advancing cross sectoral responses at the intersection of climate change, counterterrorism, and PCVE policy and programming.
I would like to thank once again our partner, Kenya, for the excellent cooperation.
GSEv for driving this initiative and all partners who contributed to the development of the toolkit.
I look forward to continuing the discussion during our side event today.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, indeed, for those opening remarks.
I think you raised the issue of causality, very important and Andre, I'm sure will tell us more about that.
You highlighted the very interesting example, one of many in the toolkit of violent extremist groups undermining community resilience against climate change.
A two way relationship, I think, very clear there.
Thirdly, let me thank Germany for your global leadership on this issue of climate security.
Of course, on behalf of GSf, let me thank both Kenya and Germany for supporting this initiative.
Final moment for these opening remarks before we turn over to the panel of experts, is to hear from Andre who led this process at GSF, including the consultations and drafting the report as well.
Andre, perhaps you can introduce the toolkit to us.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Let me start by thanking again, Germany and Kenya for the incredible leadership on driving this initiative, not only leadership, but also bravery because it's not exactly the most easy topic to touch or discuss.
I think that has to be applaud.
Second, I think before we start talking about the toolkit, I would like to just contextualize where we are right now.
I think we start this week with the UN Secretary-General framing rising temperatures as one of the factors providing instability to the world that violent extremist groups are using to recruit.
It was in the speech of the Secretary-General on Monday.
Then we move on to the session one of the high level week where we are discussing how do we do PCV and CT in settings of armored conflict and fragility.
And that kind of question was asked interestingly by the World Bank and released a report two days ago about how about we do climate on fragile and conflict settings.
The results are actually staggering.
If you consider population leaving on the settings, 40% of them are exposed to high climate risks.
However, only 0.02% of the investments in climate actually have a core objective of peace building.
Then if you take the plans that the fragile conflict affected countries have submitted over the years, the least developed area is conflict and peace.
So if you look at it from a perspective, I would say the climate is getting better, but still a long way to go on address conflict and peace.
The world bank is interesting saying, look, if you don't take that into consideration, it's very unlikely that climate action will be sustainable.
If you look ourselves in the mirror, the PCV CT community is not much different.
I think we are, yes, more risk prone because you invest and work on countries of armed conflict.
But I think it's very rare for us to see a national strategy on PCVE, NCT or programs that take climate risk into consideration.
I think that's what the toolkit is trying to do a little bit.
Maybe elucidate, maybe raise awareness, maybe open up or discussions about this intersect.
When you look at toolkit, the toolkit, as others have said, was a two year process with participation of multi sectoral, very inclusive in looking at the concept, looking at the different regions.
The conclusion is, I would say toolkit can be understood in three sections, if I wish.
The first section is an introduction that tried to conceptualize what is the links.
Then here, I think you have in front of you a small paper slip that you can do the QR code to look at the toolkit, but also have the five pathways.
Basically here is climate change acting as a threat multiplier, loss of livelihoods, displacement, the usual what we discuss normally about climate change affecting conflict and violent in this case.
The second one is extreme weather events create unique opportunities that the V groups actually take advantage of.
When there's a drought, when there's a flood, They actually act upon it by blocking the state aid to the communities, by replacing the state aid to communities to get legitimacy, by using the extreme weather event as a proof of divine punishment.
So the V groups are actually increasingly incorporating in their strategy that dynamic.
The third one is V as an impediment to climate action.
I think when you look at climate investments, we see that countries countries with violence receive half of what countries without violence in climate action funding if you consider per capita.
There's a reason because these groups and other groups creating instability that makes very difficult to do climate action.
The fourth one is climate action, if it doesn't take conflict dynamics, violent testims into consideration, can create problems in itself.
An action can be very smart climate wise, but be not so smart violent imismwise.
I'll give you a very simple example.
When you talk about community groups that have been in traditional relation for centuries and using the set of crops.
This crop last three months, and then three months they take the crop and then the pastoralists come to use the land.
If they introduce a crop that lasts six months, well, then violence can start because the whole cycle where these communities were able to coexist is disrupted.
So climate action also has to be kind of con sensitivity.
And the final one, I think we talked a lot about, I think over this week on organized crime, is smuggling, but when you look at it, I think if you go one step behind is a lot of communities are changing their livelihoods, are adapting to climate change by moving from ag pastoralism, for example, to mining, to smuggling, which is normal because you're adapting to a challenge.
But when you adapt to it, the V groups actually take advantage of it by taxing, by creating and encouraging black economies on these settings.
There are these five pathways where this relationship interacts.
I think it's very important to say it's not a direct cause.
It's a certain triggers and dynamics that make the conditions more vulnerable to radicalization recruitment or DV groups take advantage of.
I think the toolkit also has a list of case studies from different parts of the world where you look at it more in depth, what's happening like in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sahel, Somalia, Indonesia, Philippines, and different dynamics, gender dynamics, mental health dynamics, where the toolkit goes more in depth.
Finally, get 25 recommendations, which goes from terminology, goes to coordination, how to mainstream these topics in different action plans, programming on MN.
So Here, I don't think the toolkit is the final say on this topic.
I think the tool kit is the first say on this topic, probably, or the first say at UNDP has done one in 2020, but it's an organized attempt to create a health dialogue for us to just be aware of this nexus, be aware when you are thinking about strategies and be aware when you're doing the programming.
I think now is about implementation.
Thank you and I wish our best on the panel.
Thank you.
Andre, thanks very much.
Thanks to you and your team for your hard work and once again, thanks to Germany and Kenya for supporting this initiative.
What I was struck by there, Andre is, of course, GCF is the global fund for preventing violent extremism.
Most people in this room are coming at this topic from the angle of counterterrorism or preventing violent extremism.
But your point that the sustainability of climate action itself is also fundamentally at risk here is incredibly important.
We need a dialogue between climate people and terrorist people in order to make sure that both of those agendas are sustainable.
Thanks for those notes.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now turn to a moderated panel, which I think will be a series of short statements.
There will be a video statement too by some civil society partners from affected populations.
Then we will invite any of you please to make your contributions or statements towards the end.
Andre will wrap up the session for us and we'll be out of here, I think by 230, at least that's the plan.
Excuse me, start the panel by introducing and we are very honored indeed, ambassador that you are here, a delight to introduce His Ecellency Mr.
Samuel Yao Kumar, who is the ambassador and permanent representative to the UN of the Permanent Mission of Ghana here.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Excellency, distinguished ladies and gentlemen.
Ghana warmly welcomes the launch of the Nairobi toolkit on addressing the nexus between climate change and violent extremism conducive to terrorism.
We commend Kenya, Germany, sef, and our partners and collaborators for their dedication in creating a practical and timely resource for policymakers, practitioners, and communities facing a complex security landscape.
The toolkit is indeed a critical addition to a series of interventions by states of West Africa to deal with the scourge of terrorism and violent extremism.
Today's discussion is not abstract.
It is urgent.
While our country has remained resilient, despite violent extremism affecting parts of the Sahel, we know that insecurity, climate pressures, population movement, and economic shocks do not spare borders.
Development in one country and the wider Sahel have direct implications for the stability of coastal West African states, including Ghana.
At the same time, we must be precise in our understanding.
Climate change does not by itself cause terrorism.
Terrorism is shaped by many familiar and deeply rooted conditions.
Poverty, inequality, marginalization, exclusion, discrimination, weak governance, lack of opportunity, and unresolved grievances, among others.
Yet, climate change intensifies these conditions.
It acts as a threat multiplier that had already been indicated.
It deepens hardship, increases competition over scarce resources, weakens livelihoods, fuels displacement, and creates openings that violent extremist groups can exploit for recruitment, radicalization, propaganda, and control.
In Northern Ghana, communities there are already experiencing environmental stress and growing pressure on natural resources.
Farmers, pastoralist communities, women and young people are affected in different ways.
When climate stress interacts with poverty, unemployment, local grievances, or social tensions, it creates openings that violent extremist actors may seek to exploit.
This is why the Nairobi toolkit is so important.
It reminds us that the response must be interdisciplinary, evidence based, conflict sensitive, and locally grounded.
Security measures alone are not enough.
Sustainable security requires investment in prevention, livelihood, social cohesion, local governance, and trust between citizens and institutions.
We must also invest in human capital.
Terrorism and displacement have disrupted education and opportunity for many border communities.
Practical steps such as supporting bilingual schools in border areas can help meet the needs of displaced populations while building future human resource for adjoining countries.
No country can meet these challenges alone.
As a member of the economic community of West Afghan state, Equis, and a committed partner in regional peace and security, Ghana believes that cooperation must remain at the heart of our response.
Displacement, resource management, cross border movement, climate pressures, and violent extremism Extremism require collective solution.
The Nabi Toolkit gives us more than ideas.
It gives us practical guidance.
But like every framework, its true value will be measured not by the quality of its weight, but by the seriousness of its implementation.
We must move from discussion to action, from commitment to delivery, and from isolated efforts to coordinated impact.
Threat of terrorism remains real.
Climate change is intensifying the pressures that extremist actors seek to exploit, but we are not powerless.
If we act early, cooperate honestly, invest wisely, and place communities at the center of our response, we can reduce vulnerability, strengthen resilience, and protect our shared future.
Let us therefore give the Nairobi Toolkit our full and spired support.
Let us move beyond discussions to implementation.
Let us turn recommendations into action.
In conclusion, the world deserves to be safe.
Our communities deserve to be resilient.
Our young people deserve hope and each of us has been given an opportunity to contribute to that future.
I thank you.
Your Ecellcy, thank you for that rallying call.
Let us turn discussion into action.
Let us turn commitments into delivery.
Let us focus on impact, and let's give all of our young colleagues and friends and people hope in the future.
That's what, of course, we are here ultimately to try to achieve.
Thank you for your comments.
I should also mention, of course, that Ghana is we're proud to have Ghana as one of GSA's partner countries.
We're working closely with your country on your efforts to prevent plant extremism and your leadership in the region is very much appreciated.
Our second speaker is from UNDP, the UN Development Program.
Miss Katherine Wong.
It's nice to see you again, Catherine, who is the global team leader for climate and security risk, please.
Excellency excellent co chairs, colleagues, pleasure to be here with you today and a pleasure to have a chance to discuss this very important and somehow also phony topic.
As you heard from Andre, you and DP started working on these issues back in 2020, and it's been five, six years now and somehow um, it's still such a difficult topic for many of our constituencies to address.
There is very little awareness, very little understanding amongst our different communities, those working on climate environment on one hand, and those working on peace and security, on the other.
If we look back over the last couple of weeks, if we look at London Climate Week, which attracted, I think 100,000 participants over the course of the week, uh, the inaugural peace building Week here in New York, which took place last week as well, the subsidiary body, sessions of the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change.
I can go on, but I won't.
But what we can see here is that, Um, there is no climate signal, over the course of this week and the last few months, this will be one of the only convenings that we're having on this topic.
So it's critically important that we try to close these gaps and address these issues that the toolkit has identified.
It's swelteringly hot here in New York, and it's a testament to climate change as a global phenomenon, one that plays out in very localized ways.
Um, when we look at climate, we understand climate, um, as our excellent speakers have mentioned just now, not just as an environmental phenomenon, but one that is profoundly, uh, changing how our economy operates, impacting livelihoods, disasters, and society at large.
And so, um, it actually seems at odds with his understanding that there would be no further impacts for peace and security.
So this is really the gap that we are trying to address here.
When we're looking at the communities that are most affected by violent extremism, they are the same communities that are affected by climate change as well.
So we're really looking in both directions as this toolkit, um, asks us to as well.
Climate impacts on violent extremism and then violent extremism activities and how they interact with climate change.
We're looking across the gamut, the cycle of violent extremism activity from the very conditions from the enabling environment that make it conducive for violent extremist organizations to more effectively recruit in vulnerable communities, We're looking at the instrumentalization of natural resources, of water, of energy infrastructure in highly resource constrained environments affected by climate change.
We're also talking about mobilization of ex combatants and associates of armed and violent extremist organizations.
There are critical issues that we need to think about again along this life cycle.
In addition to that, today, it's 2026, it's 11 years since the Paris Agreement was signed.
It's a completely different world.
Um, and at the moment, we're looking at, um, critical tipping points in our natural systems being bridged.
One of them is, um, the core die off of coral reefs, which are the nurseries for 25% of marine species globally.
So this will have profound effects on fisheries and those dependent on fish resources.
Um.
Another tipping point is the Amazon rainforest.
An important carbon sink globally sequestering carbon, helping us in the battle against climate change.
The Amazon rainforest is under threat as we know, and its capacity to sequester our carbon dioxide, again, under threat at the same time.
Amc, here's another phrase that you've been seeing in the news recently, the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.
What does this mean? This means that the transporting the movement of warm waters from the tropics up to North Atlantic and the movement of cold waters back south again.
What we're seeing with this disruption is that there will be much cold winters in Europe, that there will be more severe, Monsoons in Asia.
Here along the east coast of the USA, we can expect much less levels of sea level rise as a result as well.
At the same time, we will see the degradation of the oceans and their capacities again to sequester carbon dioxide as a carbon sink.
In conclusion, I think I'm just stressing what our excellent speakers and experts have mentioned before me, and that is are much more severe impacts of climate change to contend with in the years to come.
This means much more severe environments and conditions under which we will have to deliver on prevention and counterterrorism activities.
It's critically important to think about next steps, how we want to engage the different partners and different constituencies here as well.
Climate action, natural resource management, access to water and energy.
These are opportunities to build peace, to connect communities, to help communities med, to help build back social cohesion.
There are incredible opportunities in terms of UNDP's work.
Just a couple of quick examples, if I may.
In West Africa and the Sahel, we are seeing increased numbers of disputes over land and these are exacerbated by climate change, exacerbated by unsustainable livelihood modalities.
At the same time, there are challenges here that are related to climate change which exacerbate these land degradation effects.
Mediation is important here.
Mediation and dialog, our work with communities, this is supported by the government of Germany, so we're very grateful to do this work together and including partners in the region.
In the Horn of Africa, we're also working with local communities to make sure that early warning early response connected again to hydro meteorological systems as well, is in place.
We know that early warning saves lives as well, and this is a critical part of our work that we need to think about again, bringing together climate and PVE early warning systems.
Our work on journeys to extremism, this hobby is around perception, our understanding of risks, I think is critical to informing next steps as well.
For climate security analysis, the type that can help inform PPE efforts, I would advise colleagues to take a look at the climate security mechanisms toolbox.
Kelle, I think I've said too much, so maybe I'll stop here.
Thank you so much again for the opportunity to contribute to these proceedings and many congratulations again to organizers.
Catherine, thanks ever so much.
You had us depressed when you were going through the climate outlook, I think you cheered us up towards the end with some positive actions and great examples from UNDP.
We at GS certainly look forward to continuing the discussion and action together with UNDP, including in Ghania, Ghana, and Kenya and other countries too.
Let's now turn to an old friend of ours at GS an old friend of mine, a friend of many of ours in the room, Tom Wucha.
Tom is the founder of the Center for Multilateral Collaboration.
That sounds like something that's fairly worthwhile to me, Tom.
Tom has also, of course, worked on these issues at the OSCE.
He led the IIJ, the Malta Institute, a serious expert in this field.
Tom, thanks for being with us.
Over to you.
Thank you, colleague, and it's nice to see a lot of friendly faces here.
For me, I couldn't think of a panel I would be more aligned with.
I spent many years in the Independent Review Panel with G Serv and I love what GServ does.
I'm personally funding two projects, one in Nairobi and one in a Ghana in Cook Rbi if I'm saying it correctly, ands in Deutschland, Sweflst.
I was a soldier in Germany for 12 years and I love Germany.
I would start by saying that, look, I I've been here involved in the GCTF since the early days and at one point, I take it is UN CT Week, and if you go back and you're a long history person, I know colleague knows this, the GCTF was created as a way to look at issues that perhaps the UN didn't feel comfortable talking about.
My remarks I was given homework by CCA to touch on four questions.
Of course, I ultimately think this toolkit can help the UN unpack some of these things in its CT world and also with UNDP.
As well and my remarks can be circulated with anybody that they want.
Without further ado, I would say that the four questions, I'll go through them real quickly as possible.
It's going to take me a little bit because these were tough questions.
As some of the speakers mentioned, the toolkit argues that climate change is not a direct cause of violent extremism.
No disagreement there.
When I left the IIJ, I was already thinking about this issue because I had an epiphany during the pandemic, that what is the off ramp of capacity building? Are we going to continue doing capacity building for 20 more years or when do we declare success and really get into the nuts and bolts of what's causing violent extremism, which is really pillar one of the UN counterterrorism strategy? The question that was asked by GServ for me to answer is, how should governments and internationals reflect this? I would start with saying there was a very interesting article recently in foreign policy and building on the UNDP As a quote, it's not mine.
As the world loses time to act, leaders are working to dominate the remains of a ruined planet.
At the moment when the imperative of survival depends upon unprecedented global climate cooperation, the question preoccupying many is over how many kinetic conflicts to consider.
Kinetic conflicts is double speak for war.
And it was mentioned UNDP started looking at this in 2022.
Yes, that's why I had an opinion.
The COVID lockdown ended up being relatively short lived, but coming out of that, climate became an unpopular topic.
I don't know why that happened, but what I learned since I wrote my little article with my colleague from Nairobi called Climate Change and Terrorism and New Alliance, Now when I speak publicly, I try to use the terminology climate fragility, which goes back to the point of resilience.
Because if you say climate change, there are many groups of ears which just tune out completely.
But tackling climate fragility requires all of us to embark on security work.
This is the first question with unexpected partners and to consider restructuring the resource sharing burden.
Namely by tapping into hard security funds to support work on the underlying conditions that give rise to violent extremism, which is ultimately pillar one of the UN strategy, which nobody really does capacity building on, really.
I think the toolkit opens up a dialogue which is going to be very useful.
You've got a big future ahead of you.
The recent resurgence of populist ideas, right and left wing or whatever you want to call these things, they've hampered political will to redirect resources and PCVE capacity building, educational programs, youth empowerment initiatives tend to be viewed overwhelmingly as separate to traditional security that is largely kinetic war and getting more and more kinetic.
It's unbelievable as a West Point graduate, myself, that's like Sandhurst or one of these other schools.
I'm both a diplomat and an army officer.
I've had a pretty interesting mix of a career and people like to say peace is strength.
But I will tell you that people say strength is peace, but Peace is strength.
No military person and I put myself in that kit, wants to go to war and we're heading in the wrong direction and the toolkit offers us an opportunity to put these issues together.
Second question is, the toolkit identifies five pathways linking climate change to violent extremism.
And the easy one is to say the first pathway, it says it's not directly caused, but I fall on the idea of the fifth pathway, which is unintended consequences of climate action.
That's where we should focus the implementation of the toolkit, my personal preference, and I'll get to that in the last question you asked me because it opens up the interrelated nature of both hard and soft power and the various crises that are going on right now.
I like to say we need to go beyond focusing on traditional threats, and I call them non traditional threats.
There's a different ways you can do that.
But this is climate, water, natural habitat, loss of cons these are interconnected threats.
When you put the two together, Katia remembers this from 2023 when we launched this, I refer to it as a Molotov cocktail that's waiting to explode.
And Our multilateral bodies, which my little organization I created, I was aspiring in 2023, 24, that we would have multilateralism really rise to the top of the heap during a US administration.
It's a tough little outfit to run right now because multilateralism is not exactly high on the agenda.
But this gives us a chance to bring back prevention and confidence building tools to regions that are at risk.
I just would underscore what Andrés said is, we don't want to treat everything as an apple.
There are apples and oranges here, so to use an American slang term.
There's a lot of countries that don't need a climate action taken on them.
But we know the ones that are most at risk and I currently most at risk.
But it goes back to my idea of unintended consequences.
We have a tendency in the international world, we're always fighting the last battle.
And we have an opportunity with this toolkit or other things like this to move on.
The evidence base has really grown and we can move from calls to understand the issue to translating this into action.
I always like to quote UNSCR 21 78, which not everybody knows what John.
That's the foreign terrorist fighter one, but it's got a great paragraph in there which says, States pledge to address the conditions conducive to the spread of violent extremism, which can be conducive to terrorism, including empowering youth, families, women, religious, educational leaders.
This is all climate related.
It's all what GServ does.
From this perspective, one can wonder if more training as capacity alone does not take us to focus from where we really need to be, and I look at my colleague from UNDP, focusing more on the role of the conditions conducive in the consequences and the need for resources.
Third question that was asked of me.
The toolkit calls for donors to open CT and I love the section on donors with the recommendation.
Funding to projects that integrate climate risk will also climate development donors to support fragile settings.
As the risk, institutions like GServ shoulder right now much of the global prevention challenge.
It's just not being resourced.
With the withdrawing of prevention support in many places, GServ and other prevention actors working at the local levels have lost major partners, and I find this baffling.
20 years into this UN counterterrorism strategy, it is the 20th anniversary coming up in September and we're losing sight of prevention and nothing happening is the goal, and we're fighting wars constantly.
It reflects a deep ideological shift I see going on in the CT world now from collaborative prevention programs towards security focused kinetic counterterrorism.
It gives you a real high to drop a bomb on somebody.
But it doesn't give you a real high to get into the nuts and bolts of the conditions conducive to terrorism, which is after 20 years, that really is where we need to put the focus.
This is a GCTF meeting, but I would just also say is a great opportunity in the donor world to partner with the UN, primarily with the UN Office of counterterrorism because of their global compact.
I don't think it has so much to do with CTAD because the UN Security Council just doesn't want to talk about this issue.
They're going from crisis to crisis.
They like to talk about military preparedness, nonproliferation, arms control, disarmament, and counterterro counterterrorismte.
With shifting of resources, cooperation and action could include highlighting Pillar one, funding networks that do donor coordination.
Capacity building in the future is not just delivered as a two to three workshop, but also you show up with resources.
This is really hard to do, but you need to bring the outside donors at the end of the workshop to actually talk to the people that you trained because they leave dissatisfied when you've said, do all these great things and you don't have the money thinking or at least discussing it with them.
Give them hope to work with.
The last question is, what would one action be that would take this new initiative, the GCTF took it forward? I have great personal experience and exposure to this because we did it on biosafety and security about a decade ago in Nairobi, Kenya when we were working on UNSCR 15 40.
You can do the same thing with the Nairobi toolkit.
What I would recommend is your initiative of there's many ways to go, but I would consider donor dialogues as a form of early warning and confidence building and I would start by using the UN office at Nairobi first.
I mean, if you read these great examples in this book, if you read them, many of them are in the Sahal Africa.
So it's not singling out or pointing fingers, it's cooperation, it's collaboration.
Then I would suggest because it's other examples in here are Southeast Asia, I would suggest using the Bangkok UN's Conference Center to do a separate one.
The objective would be to get pillar one as an underlying your partner could and should be, in my opinion, UN OCT.
With the Global Compact, get them out.
If I had really pie in the sky, I know that doesn't translate very well, but at really high bar, I think this is something that the UN Security Council ambassador should do one of their trips on.
They occasionally take one of these trips to talk about a very specific issue.
Cipri, if you know Stockholm Institute Peace Research, Cipri has a very damning analysis of how the UN Security Council is unable to talk about long range strategic issues.
They're focused, but based on what we did in my previous experience, you would organize a workshop to do all this lessons learned, sharing and stuff, but you would also bring international donors in together.
You would focus on a technical assistance, emphasizing the Nabi toolkit.
You could come up with a template probably with UN OCT from the Global to say, in one on one meetings at the conclusion of the two or three days, allow the states that are affected by climate to say, this in a perfect world is what I need.
You record it, you communicate it as follow up, and hopefully at the end, you make change.
And ultimately, that is what the toolkit does.
I personally printed a copy of it myself because I really want to read it.
It's excellent.
Congratulations to GServ I'm deeply honored to be here again today.
I really believe passionately in this issue, and I hope we get the opportunity to continue this in any way, shape, or form.
My personal involvement and services are at your own free cost, I'll come anywhere and anywhere to help you out on this? I don't need you to sponsor me.
Thank you.
Tom, thanks ever so much, Li.
I've been going to conferences of various sorts for about 40 years and you're the first person I've ever heard who actually answered the questions that were posed to the participants.
So thank you for your discipline.
Secondly, thank you for your really practical advice.
We all have said that the toolkit is interesting and valuable, but it's real value is in its implementation and you're giving us a very practical set of steps for how we as GSEf and we as an international community can begin to implement it.
We look forward to GSEf to working with you, Tom, and with colleagues to really start to implement this concretely.
Three quick observations before we turn to a quick video from some affected communities.
Firstly, Tom, it's a pleasure to have you here as an independent because it seems to me you can take the risk of speaking truth to power.
I think we all know it's been a quite difficult week for the review of the CT strategy, some guarded comments over political.
I think just to have a straightforward conversation is refreshing.
Thank you for doing that for us.
Secondly, I think Andre and I certainly have been surprised at the political sensitivity that this document has generated.
I think there were some unusual findings.
But ultimately, it seemed to us fairly obvious that there is an intersection between climate change and the risks of violent extremism.
I think Andrés found some unusual intersections.
But the idea that climate change may accelerate some of the drivers towards violent extremism and terrorism seemed to us to be fairly straightforward.
But it was a surprisingly politically, ideologically difficult piece of work to launch.
I think that's a shame that something that is straightforward should be buried behind politics and ideology.
Again, your point on terminology, on evidence, on impact, I think fundamentally important.
The final point for me, Tom, I really deeply share your concern about the prevention agenda.
The line that I'm increasingly using ten years ago, the question was, does prevention work? I think GSF and UNDP and others have answered the question.
Yes, prevention does work, we can demonstrate it works, we can demonstrate how it works and where it fails, we can demonstrate it's actually very good value for money.
The question is no longer whether prevention works.
The question now is, are we willing to sustain our investment in prevention? I think that's my real concern.
We know it works and yet we are still walking away from it.
That seems to me to be a fundamental mistake.
Thanks for putting that out there as well.
Our job, certainly at GCF, and I hope as a community is to make sure that the prevention agenda is sustained.
It may need to be reshaped, but we have to sustain a preventive element to the work that we're doing.
Finally, in terms of the panel, and then really turning over to you, colleagues, for your ideas, questions, expertise, experiences, we have a short, I think five minute video from some affected communities around this topic.
Kat you if you could roll it, please.
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When people returned home after spending years in the camps of Northeast Syria carrying wounds that no one can see.
What does healing look like? Cat, I think we're going to have to it seems that we have trouble with the video? Should we stop? I think we haven't got much time, so let's not waste too much time.
We'll try on the video, but let's perhaps start the discussion again.
These were testimonies from countries where GS is partnering, from some of the communities that are affected by this issue.
Again, really reinforcing that this risk does exist on the ground.
I'm very sorry we couldn't get the video to you, but we'll certainly share the link with you as soon as possible.
Any initial comments or questions from colleagues in the room? I know that many of you are experts and have experience of this, so please don't be shy.
We're towards the end of the week.
Tom has set us up for an open discussion, who would like to make some comments? Otherwise, I'll look at people that I know and just point to them.
Including the panelists, if anyone would like to add anything to what they've heard.
Since Tony Carroll is on my board, I know I can point to him and make him work.
For my lunch.
Which I didn't get, by the way, which I never really get.
Anyway, I Let me say this.
There is an engagement here that the private sector can crowd into.
I'm a board member of GRF, and I represent the private sector.
And surely, violent extremism does not cause climate change, but violent extremism is often in the nexus of the impacts of climate change.
And let me give you two examples.
We're currently working on artisanal small scale mining in Africa, particularly in Northern Ghana.
And the erosion of water tables, the destruction of land that used to be forested makes the climate impacts elements much more damaging than they would otherwise be.
In other countries which are producing tropical woods, the uncontrolled harvesting of tropical woods, often by those actors that are using those funds to fuel violent extremism will make the impact of those climate events much greater.
So I think we need to put this issue not only just among ourselves, but also in those business communities that are in the mining or the forestry or other products, agricultural products that will see a worsening of their financial and economic returns, but also a continued erosion of confidence in the communities in which they operate.
So there's a social dynamic to this as well.
So I don't think they're that mutually exclusive.
I think there's a interrelationship between violent extremism and climate change, climate events that I think we need to look at more closely, and I think it's our duty to sort of try to reach out and be more proactive in engaging the private sector, particularly those industries that are impacted by this.
So, Andre, again, you I've always said you're the secret sauce of GSRf.
Your work is just you know, it's remarkable in so many ways and unprecedented and appreciate the hard work that you do in this and my colleagues from Asante Sana, Madasi from Kenya, and in Ghana countries that I know well, so thank you very much.
Thank you, Tony.
I think the UN cafe has a special deal of two vegetable smosas for 699, so I'll get you some smosas for your Absolutely.
Other comments, questions, remarks.
I'm going to ask Andre to do something in a moment.
He will close, but I have a question for him, but if you could introduce yourself, please.
Thank you for the presentation of the toolkit.
My name is Glacia Boyer.
I work at the UNDP as the global stabilization Advisor.
This week is the week as you mentioned, the counterterrorism practitioners.
In my work in stabilization, we cut across.
Oftentimes it's around the violent extremism is conducive to terrorism.
In many other times, this is a straightforward conflict, and therefore we link also to the peace building community into peace building practitioners.
Since I heard the presentation, I was trying to understand in my mind and figure out what are the differences actually in terms of the actions when we look at the nexus between climate change and violent extremism as opposed to climate change and conflict is straightforward.
That is something that I would like to understand further.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Glasson.
It's very nice to see you.
I will come back to the panel and I think particularly Andre, but any other questions or comments or experiences that colleagues would like to share? Everyone is hungry like Tony, I can see.
I'm going to ask Andre to reply to Glossie, but in your reply, Andre, I suspect many people have not had the chance, as Tom did to print out the toolkit and read it at its length.
For me, one of the most interesting findings was your finding on the way that violent extremist groups can mobilize climate action to their own purposes.
I found that quite an interesting unusual link.
Perhaps you could speak a little bit about that link, Andre, and that actually may be part of the answer to Glasu as well.
Over to Andre, please.
So I think violent Tamist groups share a lot of similarities of armed non state groups.
I mean, I think there is no point when we are talking about PVE in armed settings, we are talking about groups that evolve from Thor networks to full fledged armed non state groups engaged in a civil war.
I think that's a lot of the toolkik yes applies to conflict in general because a lot of the examples come from actors like inin or off branches of al Qaeda or ISIS or al Shaab.
Al Shaab is both a Thor group, But there's also non state army group in civil conflict with Somalia government.
I think when you look at it, of course, there's overlapping there's differences, I would say the first one, the biggest one is the incorporation of the climate extreme weather events or narratives, for example.
Then here Eric Southeast Asia is a bit of a catch here because it's framing things like typhoons or floods as divine punishment.
Right? So it's a proof that we are living in disagreement with God or whatever ideology it is, and because of that, you're being punished.
Extreme weather events are actually being in Indonesia was interesting the case because they don't even say that.
They say, well, if we actually support us, then the right governance will come and then all these weather events you'll be ending.
There is a narrative component that is particularly to that particular group.
I think beyond that, I think narratives, I mean, if you think about terrorism in armed conflict, the narratives is the key maybe dimension that separates a non state armed group from a terror group and the association with al Qaeda and isis.
So these groups are transnational.
I think it's interesting also that you see that these groups if you actually look at the data, they are reflecting on climate change.
I think Al Shahba some point was doing climate or environmental actions to raise their profile.
So it's not that they're not like, I mean, maybe we do the differences.
For them, there's no much difference.
They just active strategically and they react.
But this also doesn't say that is bound to happen.
I think Al Shabab is a good example as well, because when there was a drought and Al Shabab was overexploiting communities because of the drought, he actually got a backlash of the communities.
So I think that's where you look at the context and how things are being like, react against that you look at, um, I mean, that's why it's really case by case.
I think one case that we didn't really talk here a little bit is in Europe.
Then the climate action here is, if you look at a Christchurch attack in New Zealand, he self described himself as an echo fascist.
The same thing happened to the attack in the same year in United States.
Then there are also left wing groups who are increasingly taking climate as like they are trying to infiltrate climate groups in a way.
The climate groups are not exactly V but there is an intent and there is actually EU report of the Director General of the home interior that basically put that as a threat from the left wing.
But in terms of the right wing, I would say far right, I would say attacks, there has been increasing use of climate or to deny or to incorporate as a reason to not have migration, the natural space of the place doesn't allow to have all these people coming from abroad.
So there is an incorporation of environment and climate things on narratives, unification, and then how they act.
Then it's actually a two cases.
I mean, when you think about climate change and environment means most likely we go to Somalia, Sahel, but also if you actually broaden yourself, there is a lot of in terms of, um in terms of Europe.
Also, there's a dimension, I think catering raise a little bit on DDR and you are working DR where when you're looking at child appear to be that when you're rehab integrating community based reintegration, they already have some problems of acceptance of the communities and everything.
But then if you, for example, use livelihoods for reintegration, but you don't take into consideration Climate, for example, if you almost putting the person under stress situation in very short period of time.
It's not like that climate is not a silver bullet for everything and vice versa.
It's more like if we don't take certain actions in context, you might create or unintended consequence, they are negative, or we might create a situation where we basically create and foster the environment that these groups use to recruit radicalize.
Is vastly different from non state army groups, it depends, I would say.
A But I think I think you also have to bear in mind that when you look at the shape of conflicts in the world, when you see Sahel, when you see East Africa, for example, the experts are VE groups, Ganan, Al Shabab.
It's a bit sometimes difficult to even dissociate too much and making say this is not.
I hope I answer the best I can.
I think that also explains to what Khalid has said about how demobilize climate, how demobilize environmental issues too.
I think one thing that Tony says is Al Shabab again, have you used charcoal as a source of funding.
And the charcoal source of funding is basically three vegetable, one.
Actually, the create a source of devastation where actually the lands where they actually logged and extracted charcoal become much more vulnerable now to droughts and floods and the climate change.
There is a lot of different connections and different pathways.
That's why I think the toolkik is very clear to say, look, before we do something, before you engage, just understand the context, understand how it's working there, and then act upon it.
I will stop here and maybe I will just give a chance to the video because I think it's really important for civil society to speak.
It's not easy to bring them to states right now, be very honest.
So let's see if you can listen to them.
Let's have the video.
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Well done.
And I'm not here to be political, but let me just make the point that it wasn't just funding being the reason we couldn't bring civil society partners to this room to share their experiences with you.
There are other issues as well.
Okay, please.
I partly just wanted to say thank you very much for the opportunity to have this discussion.
Somebody mentioned earlier on that sorry, my name is Sakina Arlo, I'm the Deputy Director of International Counter Terrorism at the Foreign Office in London.
Somebody said earlier on that we don't talk about this enough and I think the fact that this is coming at the end of the week and we haven't had enough focus on this is I'm very much taking that away from this conversation today.
You also mentioned Carla the point of Aaron's practical steps.
I'm reflecting on how strategy is made and how and where we decide with our finite resources because even countries like the UK have finite resources, where we put them is shaped by probably, you were mentioning this earlier on about that immediate satisfaction that you have from action that you will take.
There is a challenge for us collectively, not only in our coordination, but in our ability to think long term and to plan long term, not least because of all the very, very boring, tedious factors like financial year attribution of funds, et cetera.
That we all deal with.
None of these should be blockers to what we do.
In the UK, we have a very small amount of resource dedicated, as the G team are well aware, they know my team very well to looking at the drivers of terrorism and climate change being one of them.
I'd like to thank you for the QR code because I've just literally sent the team, both in London and also in Nairobi the link to the report, say, have a look at this and let's have a think about where we can lean in more.
And so I'm not entirely sure that I'm showing anything particularly useful other than the fact that I really welcome this and I think there is something in spending more time and on talking about this and finding those practical solutions because I find if you don't give us those practical solutions and we're not focusing on them, that's not going to generate the action that's required.
But I also just wanted to pick up on your point, Tom, and I'm sorry, I'm preventing you from getting your 241 somosas by talking for too long, is the point around the private sector involvement, I would love more time to talk about that because that in itself is a key that will support those who are writing the strategies and conducting the CVE and CT activity to delegate that out, that's probably the easiest way to get people to act more by giving that action to other people.
Just some reflections and thank you very much again.
Very helpful.
Thanks for that.
Colleagues, we have about two or 3 minutes left, apologies from my colleague from Germany.
She had to go to the airport to get a flight home, so we excuse her and again, thank Germany for their support.
Before I invite Andre to wrap up this session, briefly, are there any final comments, questions, experiences from around the room? Anyone on the panel would like to make any final points? Catherine, Ambassador, Director General.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for Germany.
Collaborators, Jesup, for this timely initiative.
As we indicated, what we are discussing today is not theory, it's not abstract, it is real and so it is time to advance our efforts in terms of moving from discussions to implementation.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ambassador.
Andre, please, final words from you, final guidance I will try to be wisdom.
I think thanks for Germany, Kenya, thanks for everyone here.
I think thanks for the whole process.
I think Tone, Katherine, you were part of the process as well of the workshops.
I think many of you were part of the process.
The UK joined us as one workshop as well.
All of us have been collaborating.
I think here maybe three points.
I think first is I think we need and here, allow me to be personal in my notes.
I think we need to be, and I know it's difficult after the city week and the city strategy to be a bit more ambitious for the next cycle.
I think, for example, when we did the or statement of GSRv, we are very clear to mention environmental stress twice.
It's something that can be as simple as that new strategy, but makes an enormous difference on how the topic, the discussion is actually established and open.
Second, I think we are prepared to implementation.
I think we, other actors, O&DP and so on.
I think we need to go to the practical steps.
Of course, that demands more resources, but also demands brainpower and thinking through.
For us, I think really Tom thank you for really thinking step by step how we can go forward with it, really about the policy, the implementation.
And third, I think we are already doing it, and I think that's an important also final, maybe a message of hope.
The person that you saw in the last video, ICD Mali from Mali, was one of the reasons that GServ actually started working on this topic.
So I think back 2021, we receive an application for a grant from this organization that actually They are not a PCV organization, they're actually a pastoralist organization.
They came with a proposal for us that including very hyper local adaptation, reforestation, management of water resources for pastoralists and herders because the genie or the groups were using that to recruit and radicalize.
I think when you look at the proposal, you are like, Oh, there's something here that we are missing.
But I think we can say you are a bit risk prone.
We say, let's fund this, let's see what happens.
At the same time, you start to have a conversation with the government of Iraq actually and Germany about climate change and effects on Iraq.
We have an event in New York on the margins of GCTF actually at that point.
After that, we discussed with our Kenyan partners and you say, Well, there's something here that we should explore, understand, and work together.
That's how the Nairobi Initiative started.
So I think what I'm saying this is because it's not something that was actually cooked or thought on our minds.
It was actually a proposal, in your case, from a partner in Mali who brought this to our attention and you say, Wait a minute, we need to stop, reflect, and think.
Nowadays, when you look at our help portfolio, you have all the projects actually worked on the nexus.
Because, let's be willing to fund this.
Let's try.
I think that's what we are looking for the GServ and you see the national strategies of GServ right now for Governor, for example, there is a climate mainstreaming strategies.
Climate is mainstream in Iraq investment strategy.
So we are trying our best to just accept, be open, and I think all of us And so I think it's a message of hope.
I think we see there are main challenges, there are resource constraints, there are political constraints.
But I think within our domain of expertise within our domain of what we can do, what you can decide, I think all of us can do something to advance the agenda, to try it out and learn.
Because I think as I said, the toolkk is just a starting point of this.
It's not the final product, it's not the final say, there will be much more evidence, and now a message of not so much hope.
I think what Catherine was saying in the end, the climate change is getting worse.
So the effects also become more visible, unfortunately, if I look.
So thank you very much and thanks to all of you and safe travels back to wherever you came from.
Thanks very much for being here