Abstract

MERDIEMAH, Joseph Kelvin  and  DANSO, Felix. Governance and Resilience: Enhancing Community-Based Strategies to Combat Violent Extremism and Terrorism in Ghana. AJCR [online]. 2025, vol.25, n.2, pp.86-113. ISSN 2309-737X.

This paper presents a contextually grounded analysis of governance and community-based strategies for preventing violent extremism and terrorism in Ghana, a country situated at the intersection of regional insecurity and democratic stability. Unlike prior studies that take a generic policy view or ignore local dynamics, this paper integrates governance theories with empirical evidence drawn from Ghana's high-risk border regions. It employs qualitative methods, specifically semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with a diverse range of stakeholders, including policymakers, security professionals, community leaders and civil society actors. The findings reveal how entrenched governance challenges, such as resource and capacity deicits, political interference and weak inter-agency collaboration intersect with acute socio-economic vulnerabilities to undermine effective prevention efforts. Notably, the study highlights the pivotal yet underacknowledged role of community engagement and grassroots participation in fostering resilience, while identifying deiciencies in existing counter-terrorism frameworks, particularly the lack of an operational definition of violent extremism and the top-down implementation approach. By bridging theoretical models with on-the-ground realities, the paper advances a multi-level framework for policy and practice that foregrounds community agency, inclusive governance and context-driven responses. It concludes with concrete, tailored recommendations to enhance both state and societal resilience, setting it apart from previous, less integrative approaches to extremism prevention in West Africa.

Keywords : governance; violence extremism; terrorism; community-based strategies; counter-terrorism frameworks; Ghana.

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