Sierra Leone Telegraph: 23 September 2026:
The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) have signed a Letter of Intent to establish a framework for closer cooperation, aligning community-led prevention efforts with development investment in fragile and conflict-affected settings across Africa.
The Letter of Intent was signed on Monday 21 September on the margins of the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly, by Ms Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade, Senior Vice President of the African Development Bank Group and Mr Stefano Manservisi, Chair of the GCERF Governing Board.
The signing took place at the African Union’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations in New York.
By bringing together GCERF’s community-level knowledge and local partnerships with the African Development Bank’s analytical expertise and operational reach, this partnership unlocks new opportunities to connect local communities with development finance, investment and economic opportunity.
The two organisations share the view that fragility, exclusion and limited socio-economic opportunities can cultivate conditions conducive to violent extremism. Connecting investment in prevention of violent extremism with wider development efforts can mitigate the risk of instability, protect development gains and strengthen the sustainability of development investments.
“This partnership reflects the simple but important idea that investment in prevention of violent extremism is also an investment in sustainable development. By bringing GCERF’s community-level experience together with the African Development Bank’s development expertise and reach, we can build stronger connections between local resilience, economic opportunity and long-term stability,” said Mr. Manservisi, Chair of the GCERF Governing Board.
“This is where our collaboration can make a real difference for both populations and countries. The Bank can help de-risk investment, strengthen institutions and align financing with national priorities. GCERF complements this with community-level prevention, local engagement and adaptive learning approaches that are especially relevant in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Together, we can ensure that resilience is not only financed from the top down, but shaped and sustained from the ground up,” said Ms Akin-Olugbade.
Under the new partnership, the African Development Bank and GCERF will combine community-level insights with development expertise to help shape more effective policies and investments in fragile settings.
The collaboration will also promote shared learning and identify opportunities for joint initiatives that strengthen prevention, resilience and national development outcomes. It reinforces a people-centred approach to fragility and advances the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus by linking local prevention efforts with broader development investment.
About the Partners
The Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) is the only global fund to prevent violent extremism. GCERF works to prevent violent extremism by investing in people, funding community-centric initiatives led by civil society organisations to address the local social, economic, and political drivers of violent extremism.
For further information about GCERF and its programmes, visit the GCERF website (https://www.GCERF.org/).
The African Development Bank is a regional multilateral development finance institution that contributes to the sustainable economic development and social progress of African countries. Through its work in transition states and other fragile and conflict-affected settings, the Bank strengthens resilience, addresses the drivers of fragility, and supports sustainable peace and development.
For further information about the Bank and its operations, visit the African Development Bank website (https://www.AfDB.org).
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