GCTF: Co-chairmanship of Morocco, Canada extended for an additional year

The seventeenth meeting of the Coordinating Committee of the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF), convened Tuesday, has renewed the mandate of Morocco and Canada as co-chairmen of the Forum for an additional year.

The meeting was an opportunity for the Forum members to renew their confidence in the co-chairmanship of Morocco and Canada by extending their mandate for an additional year, said the Moroccan Foreign Ministry in a statement released Wednesday.

The GCTF Coordinating Committee, meeting in a virtual format, took stock of the Forum’s progress since they last met in September 2019 and made a number of key decisions, including the adoption of a Ministerial Declaration conveying a message of unity and commitment against the constant threat posed by terrorism in the current pandemic context.

The Declaration underscores the importance of continued mobilization of the GCTF members to address the global threat of terrorism and recognizes the efforts undertaken by Morocco and Canada, as co-chairs of the Forum, by the co-chairs of the working groups, and by the co-leaders of the Forum initiatives, in order to maintain a positive and active work momentum in the current pandemic context, said the statement.

The GCTF also adopted a Memorandum on Good Practices on Strengthening National-Local Cooperation in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism; and the Addendum to The Hague Good Practices on the Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism: Focus on Criminal Justice.

Due to the ongoing global health crisis, the GCTF Ministerial Plenary Meeting was postponed.

The Global Counterterrorism Forum, launched in 2011, is co-chaired by Morocco since 2016. The international forum, mustering 29 countries and the European Union, cooperates with several international, regional and sub-regional organizations, including the United Nations.

The GCTF is structured around five working groups focused on “Countering Violent Extremism”; “Foreign Terrorist Fighters”; “Criminal Justice and the Rule of Law”; “Capacity-building in the East Africa Region” and “Capacity-building in the West Africa Region”.