2nd PAVE Progress and General Assembly Meeting

On 22nd to 24th February, the PAVE consortium gathered for the second time in a joint progress and assembly meeting in Paris

On the first day of the meeting, the work package leaders reported their progress and first results from the second progress year after finishing their field research in the seven case study countries and gave an insight from their recent stakeholder committee meetings. Each presentation was accompanied by a rich discussion on ethical challenges in regard to the field research with the attending members of the PAVE external advisory board Sheikh Mohammed Abu Zaid and Prof. Tom Sorell. Also, an exploitation workshop was held to develop a strategy for dissemination and exploitation of the project results.

For the second day of the meeting, PAVE met with its sister projects CONNEKT and PREVEX for a joint research symposium to report on each project’s experiences on drivers and features of violent extremism and discuss individual country findings and regional trends in the Western Balkans and the MENA region. This meeting was a first stepping stone for the three projects, funded under the same H2020 call, to cross-fertilise research results and identify common recommendations for EU and in-country policymakers. The cooperation will continue over the next months, through joint events and publications.

The third day of the assembly meeting took the form of a multi-stakeholder workshop on capacity-building needs related to the prevention of violent extremism, with the purpose of developing tailored capacity-building tools and training modules. The workshop was organised by PAVE partners from the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers at Finn Church Aid. Testimonial speakers and two breakout sessions provided stakeholders from the MENA and Balkans the opportunity to offer reflections and sustainable recommendations on the identified capacity needs and proposed solutions.

Although the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic has challenged the implementation of the project, PAVE has successfully conducted its fieldwork phase and is now working on the elaboration of the project results and their exploitation.