ON Friday, the US and Turkey announced the creation of a new $200 million global fund that aims to tackle violent extremism. The Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience will combine government and non-government financing to provide consistent support for interventions that counter radicalisation.

At first look, the fund seems a positive initiative, shifting focus from tackling the symptoms of violent extremism to addressing root causes. The fund’s model of supporting grass-roots interventions is also welcome since it will allow for flexibility and approaches that are tailored to local contexts and cultures.

According to press reports, funding will go to local organisations and projects that are developing counter-narratives to extremist messaging, bolstering moderate voices, and educating Muslim thought leaders. Specific projects that are likely to be financed include curriculum development to promote tolerance, vocational training for vulnerable youth, and websites and social networks that challenge extremist rhetoric.

Unfortunately, the challenges posed by extremism in Pakistan illustrate why such a fund will have minimal impact. At best, it will perpetuate liberal enclaves with little bearing on extremist trends. At worst, it will absolve states of the responsibility of implementing effective and holistic counter-extremism programmes, putting the onus on civil society instead.

The fund’s main challenge will lie in identifying which projects and local organisations to support. Most counter-radicalisation projects have tried to push back against the extremist narrative that argues that Muslims are being oppressed and therefore violence is a legitimate defence. Engaging with this narrative often requires the reinterpretation of religious texts. However, owing to the Western concern for the separation of church and state, international donors can be uncomfortable supporting initiatives that have such religious overtones.

Western governments have also previously balked at funding the groups best positioned to engage with youth who are vulnerable to radicalisation. The fact is, secularism-loving liberals and those who espouse extremist views are much too disconnected to engage in a meaningful dialogue (there’s a reason why #FAT — fashionistas against Talibanisation — became a social media meme). The groups that can stage counter-extremism interventions often hail from the right-wing end of the spectrum between liberalism and extremism (think imams, non-violent religious political parties, Islamic charities).

But these groups make the international community nervous. For example, in Britain, the current coalition government cut funding to several youth engagement and counter-radicalisation programmes because they were managed by groups — eg Salafi mosque associations — whose values seemed incompatible with the democratic principles the state seeks to uphold.

In the Netherlands, too, discomfort with political Salafism, which is anti-integration, made it the target (rather than the conduit) of de-radicalisation programmes even though it was not explicitly violent in its ideology. In both cases, the Western governments were wary of the Muslim organisations’ real aims, and feared that they were simply displaying moderation in order to get state approval for their activities.

The skittishness around financing conservative or fundamentalist groups means the global fund is likely to support civil society groups that subscribe to Western, democratic values, but have little sway over those prone to extremism — a multi-million-dollar exercise in preaching to the choir.

The fund also threatens to distract from the fact that effective counter-extremism programmes have to be state-driven, top-down, and comprehensive initiatives that include everything from outlawing militant groups to revising school curriculum, from banning hate speech to amending flawed legislation. Without state-level commitment to eradicating extremism, there is little that a global fund can hope to do. To illustrate this point, let’s consider how initiatives the fund might sponsor would fare in a Pakistani context.

Take the idea of building websites and a community of web-savvy moderate Muslims to tackle extremist narratives online. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated the ‘echo chamber’ effect of the internet: people visit websites to have their existing views affirmed, not challenged. In Pakistan, jihadi websites are proliferating alongside liberal Twitter feeds, and online dialogue is more polarised than discourse in the real world (if that were possible). Increased funding for liberal-minded websites will simply drive this polarisation; what’s really needed is state regulation against online material that incites hatred or violence.

Or consider the fund’s interest in promoting religious tolerance, which might include support for interfaith initiatives. Following the horrifying attack on Peshawar’s All Saints Church, there were calls for interfaith dialogue and events to express solidarity with the Christian community. But it’s not surprising that the brutal attack also reignited dialogue within the National Assembly about the blasphemy law, which perpetuates systemic discrimination and persecution of all religious minorities in Pakistan. While interfaith exchanges are no doubt important, a parliamentary consensus against deeply flawed legislation is the real need of the hour.

In a recent policy brief, Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations, an advocate of a global fund to counter violent extremism, pointed to Pakistan-based Khudi as an ideal beneficiary. Khudi has established networks at university campuses across Pakistan that challenge radical views through debate and publications. While Khudi’s work is commendable, we cannot ignore the fact that institutional weakness and the basic failures of law enforcement have turned many of our public sector universities into breeding grounds for extremism, where militia-like groups perpetuate extremist views and hold students’ minds and discourse hostage.

To truly help communities counter violent extremism, the new global fund should support and build the capacity of civil society groups that seek to hold governments accountable for their failure to develop and implement national counter-extremism programmes. The scale of the problem in places like Pakistan is now so immense that civil society interventions can no longer substitute for serious government action.

The writer is a freelance journalist. huma.yusuf@gmail.com