Why We Did This Audit
Violent extremism has afflicted West Africa for several years. Militant violence and related fatalities have increased. The northern border regions of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, for instance, are facing greater difficulties from militant groups attempting to increase tensions between communities. Benin and Togo have also seen a rise in fatalities due to violent extremism. The general regional instability has led to five military coups since 2020. Exploiting this instability, Russia has intervened to support coup leaders, most recently in Niger.
U.S. officials feared violent extremism in West Africa would spill over to the neighboring coastal countries. Violent events linked to extremist organizations along the borders of coastal West African countries has increased by more than 250 percent in the last 2 years.
USAID’s West Africa Regional Mission (USAID/West Africa) established preventing and countering violent extremism (PCVE) as an objective in its 2020–2025 Regional Development Cooperation Strategy. The mission provided PCVE assistance awards to advance U.S. national security interests by supporting peace, prosperity, and stability overseas while reducing threats to Americans at home and abroad.
We conducted this audit because of the threat violent extremism poses to West Africa and broader U.S. foreign policy and national security interests in the region. Our objective was to determine to what extent USAID/West Africa implemented, measured, and conducted oversight of selected activities to prevent and counter violent extremism.
What We Found
Start-up delays hindered USAID/West Africa’s efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism. The three PCVE awards that we selected for the audit had implementation delays during the first year because of various challenges. As a result, the implementers of the awards missed nearly all performance indicator targets or did not report the first-year results. However, USAID/West Africa did not conduct lessons-learned exercises focused on first-year delays to strategically inform and adapt PCVE activities to achieve results. USAID risked encountering similar challenges if it did not systematically learn from past experiences, reflect on implementation, and apply lessons to future PCVE activities.
USAID/West Africa’s mission-level performance indicator did not measure progress toward the overall goal of preventing and countering violent extremism. The indicator—which tracked the number of PCVE regional, national and local efforts implemented—did not measure the outcomes or impact of those efforts. Specifically, this indicator did not provide USAID officials and other stakeholders with the information on the effect those efforts had on changing public attitudes, perceptions, or behaviors related to community cohesion or preventing violent extremism.
USAID/West Africa’s oversight did not include third-party monitoring in nonpermissive environments, which could have hindered efforts to achieve PCVE goals. Due to unsafe conditions and security-related travel restrictions, USAID staff could not access PCVE project sites to monitor the three selected awards’ progress in meeting goals. Further, the mission did not use third-party monitors, which the Agency often used in nonpermissive environments, to mitigate this challenge.
What We Include for Consideration
We suggest that the administration consider enhancing the implementation, outcome measurement, and oversight of future PCVE programs in nonpermissive environments.