General news about the Strong Cities Network, including updates to our members, website news, events and more.
This virtual event takes place 30 September 2020, 09:30 – 11:00 EST / 13:30 – 15:00 UTC. This September, the Strong Cities Network (SCN) will be celebrating five years of achievements since it launched at the U.N. General Assembly in 2015. To mark the occasion, we are organising a celebratory event showcasing the leadership of…
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Brand new community-based intervention programme launched in Kenya seeks to integrate communities into local action plans.
Above: A worker for Human Development Agency (HUDA), Kwale County, hands out personal protection equipment to motorbike taxi drivers. The threat of COVID-19 has affected us all in different ways, but particularly civil society. Kenya has had more than 10,000 confirmed cases, but in addition to the cost of lives as a result of the…
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Above: A veiled woman walks with her child at al-Hol camp in al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria on February 17, 2019. (Photo by BULENT KILIC / AFP via Getty Images) Since the Strong Cities Network (SCN) launched its member survey and previous article on rehabilitation and reintegration in March 2020, there has been little progress…
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Photo by Dewang Gupta on Unsplash About the Authors: Amarnath Amarasingam is an Assistant Professor in the School of Religion at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, and an Associate Fellow at the Global…
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In our previous article we explored how violent extremist organisations can use a breakdown of trust between local communities and the state to harness support for their activities and recruit individuals at risk. In this issue, we look at the other side of the coin and outline how an accountable, transparent and human rights-grounded law…
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Above: the town of Majdal Anjar, Lebanon Nidal Khaled, Coordinator, Local Prevention Network. President of the Youth Initiatives Association. Ghida Elassaad, Project Coordinator, Strong Cities Network This article was written before the Lebanese government ordered the coronavirus lockdown. Fear of the coronavirus pandemic is sweeping across Lebanon, and the border town of Majdal Anjar is…
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As we respond to the unprecedented challenge of COVID-19, governments are mobilising resources to ensure citizens are kept safe and healthy, while protecting their economies and institutions. However, COVID-19 was the not the only thing to spread exponentially across the world – the spiralling ‘infodemic’ of disinformation surrounding the pandemic also threatens our cities and…
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The scale of the global COVID-19 crisis is unprecedented, but so is the response from cities. The next few months will challenge us all as national governments, cities and local aid workers will be forced to find innovative solutions to unfamiliar problems. To help, we have put together some of the best advice and resources we’ve seen from city leadership, academia, think-tanks, global organisations and local civil society on how cities can face this threat.
Last July we wrote an article putting forward the case for the repatriation of foreign fighters and their families from Syria and Iraq. We want to try and capture the views of city governments, and see what you as our members think we can do.
