In recent years, Africa has experienced increased growth in extremism. Of the top 10 deadliest extremist groups listed on the Global Terrorism Index 2014, five operate in Africa: Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, AQIM, The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS). Good Governance Africa’s (GGA) work on national security explores the phenomenon of extremism in order to establish how far governance factors and other contingent reasons may be responsible for the emergence and functioning of extremist groups and consider possible policy interventions that might mitigate the risks of the spread of terrorism. In June 2018, GGA launched Africa’s first locally-produced publica

A significant number of countries across the globe experience violent extremism, especially developing countries, undermining democratisation, economic growth and security. While violent extremism is a small part of South Africa’s violent context, it is a growing threat with potentially high impact. South Africa has yet to experience any significant acts of violent religiously motivated extremism, but experts agree that it is not immune to an attack. At this point, however, it is not well understood what would motivate an extremist attack on South African soil or from where the attack would originate. Comparatively little work is being done to understand the drivers of violent extremism in S