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NSW Countering Violent Extremism Program

Jurisdiction
New South Wales
Year
2015-2020
Outcomes
DiversionDisengagementResilienceCapability

In November 2015, the NSW Government committed $47 million for a suite of measures to respond to the rise of violent extremism, referred to as the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Program. The CVE Program aims to ensure that violent extremists are disengaged from violent extremism, at-risk individuals are diverted from violent extremism, and community resilience in prevention and response to violent extremism is improved. The program has funded a spectrum of work from broad social cohesion efforts to focused intervention activities, including but not limited to:

  • COMPACT
  • CVE Training Program
  • Engagement and Support Program
  • Juvenile Justice CVE Package
  • School Communities Working Together
  • Step Together

Many of the initiatives under the CVE Program have been separately evaluated. This program-wide evaluation draws on these project-level evaluations, project summaries and interviews with key stakeholders.

Key takeaways

The evaluation found that the CVE Program has achieved enabling and intermediate outcomes relating to:

  • improved capability in NSW Government and communities to respond
  • increased community resilience to violent extremism
  • increased awareness of violent extremism in the community and NSW Government
  • strengthened protective factors against violent extremism
  • mitigation of drivers of violent extremism

The evaluation notes difficulty in reporting against diversion and disengagement outcomes. The report also notes that this is commonly encountered in CVE and that in the short to medium term there is greater value in focusing on community impacts.

The evaluation also highlights that the CVE Program has:

  • achieved significant reach: activities under the program have impacted upon nearly 1.5 million people in NSW
  • built significant relationships across government and community
  • produced important resources, including the NSW Counter Terrorism Strategy and the NSW Strategic Communications Plan

Relevant reports