US Cuts Funding for the Prevention of Extremism : by Carol Bellamy and Shared by Niloufar Pourzand

Totally Baffling: US Cuts Funding for the Prevention of Extremism 

Carol Bellamy 

PassBlue, February 16, 2026

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A January 7 presidential memorandum from the Trump administration withdrew United States funding from dozens of international organizations focused on counter-terrorism and preventing extremism, including the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF). 

The organization, which former UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy helped launch in 2014, aims to prevent extremism by diverting young people from radicalization. Over the past decade, GCERF has reached five million young people in danger of radicalization in 25 countries at a cost of just $30 per young person pulled back from extremism.

US funding represented only $3 million to $5 million annually — approximately 15 percent of GCERF's annual budget — but the loss will be keenly felt particularly in Iraq and northeast Syria, where GCERF supports the return, rehabilitation and reintegration of families from camps such as Al-Hol and Al Roj. In Mosul, a father named Jamil and his six children returned home after years in these camps, where they endured trauma, deprivation and ISIS indoctrination. 

Through a GCERF-supported program run by the Iraqi Institute for Development, the family received counseling and educational support for the children. 

In Tunisia, a young man named Bilel, who had been influenced by extremist groups, joined Takamul, a GCERF-funded project that helped him launch his own construction business.

Despite billions spent on armed responses to terrorism over the past two decades, terrorist attacks increased in 2024, with the number of countries recording attacks rising from 58 to 66 — more than one-third of countries worldwide. Bellamy argues the funding withdrawal reflects an ideological shift from collaborative prevention programs toward security-focused counterterrorism, noting the Trump administration appears uninterested in prevention.

Quote: "This center has given me hope. My children are getting the support they need, and I know they will have a better future." — Jamil, father in Mosul

Quote: "Despite billions of dollars spent on armed responses to terrorism over the past two decades, the world is not safer. It is more dangerous than at any time since the pro-democracy uprisings of the Arab Spring that occurred in the early 2000s."