Mark Singleton attends GCERF Inaugural Board Meeting

In his capacity as Alternate Board Member, ICCT director Mark Singleton attended the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund’s inaugural Board meeting in Geneva, from 17 and 18 November 2014, together with sixty representatives from more than twenty countries, the European Union, the United Nations, civil society, private sector, foundations, and research institutions. A public-private partnership, GCERF is the first global effort to support local, community-level initiatives aimed at strengthening resilience against violent extremist agendas. GCERF was initiated by the Global Counter Terrorism Forum, over a year ago. At the first Board meeting, members agreed upon a number of strategic issues, including appointing Ms Carol Bellamy as Chair, and Dr Khalid Koser as Executive Director; governance documents, including grant application processes, resource mobilization, and a two-tier funding mechanism were also endorsed. In addition to the core funding mechanism, which will initially provide funding in four pilot countries, a detailed proposal for a secondary accelerated funding mechanism to facilitate the international community’s swift responses to urgent issues in violent extremism (including funding initiatives to counter radicalisation to the group known as ISIL, ISIS or Da’esh) was approved. It is expected that GCERF’s core funding mechanism will begin dispersing funds to community-level initiatives in Bangladesh, Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria by September 2015. For more information, please visit GCERF’s website at www.gcerf.org