Mandate

During the third review of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and in the ensuing resolution (A/RES/66/282) of 29 June 2012, the General Assembly encouraged Member States to further elaborate and develop national, subregional and regional plans to support the implementation of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

In its resolution 1963 (2010) the Security Council encouraged the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) to “arrange meetings with Member States in various formats, with their consent, including for the purpose of considering advising, as appropriate, on the development of comprehensive and integrated national counterterrorism strategies and the mechanisms to implement them that include attention to the factors that lead to terrorist activities, in accordance with their obligations under international law, and in close cooperation with the CTITF and its Working  Groups, with a view to ensuring coherence and complementarity of efforts and to avoid any duplication.”

Status

The CTITF Working Group on National and Regional Strategies was established to ensure system-wide coordination and coherence and to support Member States’ implementation of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and its review resolutions, as they relate to the facilitation and development of national and regional counter-terrorism strategies. The development of national and regional counter-terrorism strategies entails a number of steps, including comprehensive analyses of the terrorist threat and of the counter-terrorism responses; definition of the scope of the response; identification of stakeholders and priorities; existing institutional mechanisms for inter/intra agency cooperation, coordination and information exchange  mechanisms; availability of financial resources and technical expertise; and creation of realistic, balanced and concrete plans of action. Given their comprehensive scope, such national and regional counter-terrorism strategies must also include measures to prevent terrorism by ensuring that conditions that are conducive to the spread of terrorism are effectively addressed and countered, and that all measures taken in this respect are in conformity with  international law, including human rights norms and standards. To date, the Working Group has supported the adoption of regional counter-terrorism strategies in Central Asia and the Southern Africa Development Community, and is currently working with Central African States to develop an integrated strategy to counter terrorism and the proliferation of small arms in the Central African region.

Entities

All entities  of CTITF are part of the Working Group.