This toolkit is designed for UNDP practitioners and partners who are working on programmes that are either specifically focused on preventing violent extremism (PVE), or have PVE-relevant elements to them. It draws on best practice for design, monitoring and evaluation in complex, conflict contexts adapting these for PVE programming. The toolkit includes modules, processes and approaches as well as an indicator bank that can be used within UNDP, with national and community level partners, and as part of a capacity-building approach around monitoring.

As the pace of specific PVE programming has increased – due to the urgency around preventing a rise in violence and deaths as a result of extremist behaviour, so too has the pressure to find a silver bullet of ‘what works’. 

A community of practice is developing to better inform PVE programming. However, the systems and tools for understanding the suitability of PVE as an approach and the impact that PVE interventions have in different contexts have not yet been available. Programming has been criticised for not sufficiently testing assumptions with systematic scientific and empirically based research.

This toolkit has been designed to help close this gap. It was developed by UNDP in collaboration with International Alert, an organisation working with people directly affected by conflict to build lasting peace.