Launched in 2016 in the wake of the Holy Artisan bakery terrorist attack, UNDP's Partnership for Tolerant and Inclusive Bangladesh (PTIB) focused on working with a wide range of stakeholders to prevent violent extremism. Five years on the project has a new mission - helping a new generation of digital citizens in Bangladesh.

The world is more youthful than ever. There are more than 1.8 billion young people in the world, 90 percent of whom live in developing countries. While youth have never been more educated and digitally connected, they still face major impediments to achieving their full potential. A breathtaking 270 million people aged 15-24 have neither education or employment. In Bangladesh, young people between 15-24 make up over 21 percent of the population, or 32 million people. In Bangladesh, over 12 percent of young people are unemployed, the highest levels since the early 1990s.

Digital transformation is accelerating the inclusion of youth. There is growing support for mobilizing younger generations and leveraging new technologies to drive political, social and economic progress. The United Nations Secretary General’s recently issued Our Common Agenda underlines the risks of unmet expectations and the critical importance of delivering on the priorities of young people. This involves building human capital and social cohesion and engaging them as critical partners and agents of change. Priorities include more diverse and effective youth engagement, digital literacy, decent economic opportunities and long-term intergenerational thinking.

Digitalization also has a dark side. Among them are the threats posed by online harms such as misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and violent extremism. While access to the internet and new technologies have tremendous empowerment potential, it can also accelerate alienation, confusion, frustration and even radicalization, especially among young people. Youth are both vulnerable, but also potential change-makers. An additional challenge is that efforts to police social media are not only partial and uneven, they risk curbing free speech and contributing to further mistrust.

Detecting, deterring and reducing digital harms must be data-driven and evidence-based. Ideally, it entails a public health approach that seeks to reduce the risks of exposure and strengthen the protective factors, and resilience, of at-risk populations. Taking down content and redirecting users is just one part of the equation. Even more important is investment in digital resilience to build awareness of the threats and drive collective action to respond.

PTIB partners such as the Bangladesh Peace Observatory (BPO), the Cox’s Bazar Research and Analysis Unit (CARU) and the SecDev Group (SecDev) produced more than 80 high-quality knowledge products reaching thousands of government, private sector and non-governmental stakeholders. PTIB also fielded a series of activities that built on its successful Digital Peace Movement and Diversity for Peace campaigns involving over a dozen public online events, hackathons with young innovators and social media campaigns reaching millions of Bangladeshis.

Building the foundations for digital citizenship

Today, the impact of PTIB is much more than just reinforcing resilience to violent extremism - it is laying the foundation for digital citizenship among Bangladeshi youth. It directly engages and empowers tech savvy youth to expand equity and inclusivity. It leverages the rapid digital transformation underway in Bangladesh, including the more than 116 million people who are online, some 70 percent of the population. PTIB mobilizes Bangladesh’s digital natives and online influencers to drive progressive narratives and support collective action to reverse polarization and build trust.

As one measure, the program has reached– over 10 million people directly - with public information campaigns and strengthened the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 16 and the building of a more peaceful, just and inclusive society. The PTIB demonstrated its powerful mobilizing effects during the COVID19 pandemic. As in other countries, the pandemic disrupted public services, retailers and supply chains and lockdowns fueled mounting mistrust of government, private actors and nongovernmental organizations.  The program ramped-up investment in community and youth-led programs to give a platform for minority voices and reinforce values of diversity, inclusion, and tolerance to counter the threat of radicalization.

PTIB powerfully highlights the potential of leveraging new technologies to empower young people. And by privileging minority voices - including the hearing impaired, transgender communities, and linguistic and ethnic minorities - PTIB amplified shared values of inclusion, diversity, tolerance, and secularism. Yet PTIB’s activities are far from complete. In 2022, the program intends to scale-up activities, especially to understand the challenges facing youth-at-risk. PTIB will also deepen activities to reduce the digital divide, disrupt increasing digital harms targeting women and girls, and improve the participation of women and girls in digital empowerment. This next phase of PTIB will mark its transition from a mechanism designed to respond and reduce the threat of online violent extremism, to a pillar for Bangladesh is digital transformation and its future digital citizens.