Lake Chad Basin

In July 2017, the RESOLVE Network launched a research project in the Lake Chad Basin to assess the role of the state, civil society, and other non-state actors in shaping the political divides over the role of religion in education and community and state responses to extremism in Chad, Nigeria, and Cameroon. The RESOLVE Network offers an innovative means of helping USAID and other U.S. government partners interested in testing assumptions embedded in their theories of change about the effectiveness of P/CVE interventions in the educational arena. The core research question driving the initiative is: what are the potential pitfalls, pratfalls, and barriers to successful educational development programming in Lake Chad Basin communities at risk of vulnerability to violent extremism. 

RESOLVE worked to publish a comprehensive mapping paper exploring gaps in locally-informed, empirically-driven research on violent extremism by mapping out current knowledge, research gaps, and emerging trends related to religion within the higher education sector and its relation to violent extremism. The research also produced three case studies on the role of religion on university campuses and intersections with violence and violent extremism in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad.

Click here to read the full project backgrounder.