Towards a Global Network on Safer Cities
Workshop
April 8-10 th, 2011 – Nairobi, Kenya
Notes of Proceedings
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Synthesis of proceedings of the 3-days Workshop for a Global Network for Safer Cities
April 8th to 10th – Nairobi, Kenya – UN Compound, Gigiri
HIGHLIGHTS OF SESSION 1: Opening Session – Strategic Orientation of UN-HABITAT
This meeting was convened to jointly establish a roadmap for the future of international collaboration on urban safety and to establish what usefulness a Global Network on Safer Cities may have considered in respect of the particular goals of each partner.
Urban development tends to be sustainable when local authorities are properly equipped to prevent urban crime and violence, guarantee the security of tenure, and manage the consequences of human-made and natural disasters. UN HABITAT is the focal point for local governments within the UN system. Therefore, the agency is in a privileged position to take on this task.
Through the Safer Cities Programme, UN HABITAT intends to build a Global Network on Safer Cities (GNSC) with the aim of spurring solid collaboration between the various international crime prevention partners. This initiative is supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
A primary concern underlying the GNSC is to influence the urban policy agenda of local governments. Work is still required to mainstream crime prevention. Furthermore, urban managers and city majors need to be further exposed to the positive impacts on urban safety of horizontal and vertical coordination and investment in social development.
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Synthesis of proceedings of the 3-days Workshop for a Global Network for Safer Cities
April 8th to 10th – Nairobi, Kenya – UN Compound, Gigiri
HIGHLIGHTS OF PLENARY SESSION 1: Lessons from Practice: Finding the most appropriate institutional mechanism to mainstream prevention, safety and security at local governmental level
Lessons learned from the field:
-The relevance of problem solving oriented approach
-The consideration of a heavy coordinating role among the different city actors is crucial
-The importance of having a sufficient yearly budget to support the activities
Key challenges:
-Articulate the work between local authorities, other governmental levels and other stakeholders
-The GNSC should have a clear added value
-The GNSC should not replace Safer Cities Programme
-The Safer Cities Programme should be part of other UN Agencies (UNODC and UNDP)
-Each city has its specificities and experiences and should develop its own model
-The role of cities is not accepted: lack of delegation and decentralization
-Leadership is crucial to face strategic factors of urban violence and crime and passivity is a key obstacle
-Information is important but one must know how to read it correctly
-There is a serious confusion on the meaning of prevention
-Urban violence and crime are cross cutting issue. The social dimension of the phenomenon is decisive.
-Participation means responsabilization of people.
Questions/comments:
Evaluation is a key question. When 30% or programs of violence prevention in US have negative effects, the question of evaluation and of how to evaluate must be raised.
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Synthesis of proceedings of the 3-days Workshop for a Global Network for Safer Cities
April 8th to 10th – Nairobi, Kenya – UN Compound, Gigiri
HIGHLIGHTS OF PLENARY SESSION 2: Snapshots of International Experiences – German Development Cooperation with their partners in Africa
Lessons learned from the field:
-There was no national driver for a safer cities initiative in South Africa. There were excellent policies but there was also a serious problem of implementation
-There is a huge amount of initiatives on violence prevention but there is no appropriate coordination among them
-Safety must be closely linked with participatory government: governments work more for the people than with the people
-Partnerships between all levels of government are decisive componentsof violence prevention strategies
-Community should have greater recognition: Human security perspective not law enforcement focus
-The fight against economic, social, institution and cultural exclusion is crucial
-Evaluation based on citizens’ perception is a relevant approach
Main key challenges for violence prevention:
-Mayors have difficulties to admit that they have issues of safety
-Crime should be acknowledged as a component of cities
-Violence generates urbanism of fear
-Partnership with stakeholders is crucial for the success of violence prevention strategies
-We must be careful not to build safe spaces but rather safe cities to avoid creating social and spatial segregation
Questions/comments/concerns about the GNSC:
The GNSC could be an opportunity to precise who will be our target and first partner: local governments and cities or all governmental arrangements in a country?
Synthesis of proceedings of the 3-days Workshop for a Global Network for Safer Cities
April 8th to 10th – Nairobi, Kenya – UN Compound, Gigiri
HIGHLIGHTS OF PLENARY SESSION 3: Snapshots of Global Partners work in Crime and Violence and their areas of collaboration with cities
Challenges for the GNSC:
-The question about the relation between the GNSC, UN-HABITAT and Safer Cities must be raised. What do we expect of the GNSC?
-Develop projects to generate knowledge, to learn and build cases
-Explore partnerships, opportunities to promote exchange
-To give the network a value in itself
-Develop a working plan with all the members of the GNSC to have an active network
-It is important to clean the prevention discourse. What does prevention mean?
-Safety is a right. It has to be also understood from a positive perspective.
-Develop the public health approach to urbanviolence and crime
-Encourage the development of a shared agenda
-Promote joint evidence-based violence prevention activities
-Increase collaboration between health and justice sectors
-Agendas and interest of participants and the Network have to converge
-We have to be careful of the selection of participants: leaders must have time, clear aims, products and timelines
-We have to focus on coordinating structure among all organizations working on the same field (global governance),
-It is time to consider global funding mechanism
-How practically collaborate on a community basis?
-Develop learning products (like the WB Institute and e-learning courses)
-Violence against women and girls in public spaces is a universal issue. However, the main focus is mainly on domestic violence. Research is needed to verify if domestic violence is really the most serious violence against women.
-The key challenge is to invest in strong cases and to educate donors that a strong case needs time and resources
-Communities as researchers and not only objects of researches
-The way forward: focus on real impact and increasing interest in impact measures
General conclusions and comments:
-Trainings and access to education are key elements in thinking of violence prevention
-The role of the Medias in spreading fear of insecurity
-Possibility for a big cooperation south-south or a global network thatovercome the dichotomy north/south?
-Complementing and not competing partners
-Monitoring and evaluation: institutional rational management is overvalued when it comes to aid and cities
-We have to clarify our terminology
-Why a global network?
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