ESA Regional Hub: Regional Workshop on the Role of Border Municipalities in Addressing Hate, Extremism, Trafficking and Other Threats to Safety and Security

Publication Date:

12/06/2025

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Summary

On 11–12 June 2025, Strong Cities Network’s East and Southern Africa (ESA) Regional Hub convened over 50 municipal officials, representatives of national governments and civil society organisations, as well as regional and other multilateral organisations such as the African Union (AU) Border Programme, GIZ, East African Community (EAC), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Organised as part of the Hub’s Border Municipalities Working Group and financed by the European Union as part of its STRIVE Cities programme, the workshop focused particular attention on border municipalities, providing a platform for candid conversation about the threats they face by virtue of sitting on or within proximity of a border and the innovative ways they are preventing and responding to such challenges.

Key Findings

It is in border areas that many of the region’s greatest safety and security challenges converge: criminal, terrorist and other malign actors exploit the region’s porous borders to traffic in persons, drugs, arms and other contraband; commit other forms of transnational organised crime; and radicalise, recruit and plan and commit attacks. Local governments in border areas also grapple with the spillover of violence from neighbouring countries, resource-related conflicts between rural communities, rapid migration and urbanisation and other impacts of crises such as climate change.
Border towns face these threats while also trying to address day-to-day concerns shared by other local governments across the region, such as youth unemployment, capacity to scale public services to meet the needs of rapidly growing populations, the spread of social media without proportionate digital citizenship or digital hygiene capacity and more.
Despite having limited resources to address these complex challenges, border towns are taking important steps to better protect their communities from harm and prevent cross-border, inter-ethnic and anti-migrant tensions from escalating further. Among others, this includes collaborating with local governments with which they share a border to host joint markets, schools, radio campaigns and other initiatives intended to create positive exposure and unity between their communities.
More can be done to empower local governments to implement regional border security and other relevant frameworks. For example, the EAC envisions a clear role for municipalities in implementing its regional integration strategy, but local officials are generally unaware of this role and requested greater awareness-raising and capacity-building efforts to enable them to fulfil it.

Threats & Key Challenges

The workshop provided participants with the opportunity to share key drivers of instability and insecurity in their communities. Across the board, youth disenfranchisement and idleness remain major concerns, with participants noting that young people are still too often seen as the problem, rather than as partners in addressing threats to social cohesion. Economic exclusion of young people exacerbates this, with participants sharing that youth often do not meet the criteria for loans or economic opportunities, despite many having innovative business or development ideas. Where opportunities exist, there is a consensus that more must be done to raise awareness about how to access them.

Participants agreed that local governments are well-placed to address these challenges: they can shift the narrative about young people through proactively seeking out youth to partner with, tapping into their social media skills to co-deliver positive messaging and raise awareness about job and other civic engagement opportunities among their peers.

Participants also pointed to inter-ethnic and tribal conflict as (re)emerging points of tension. In particular, they pointed to how climate change – and its impact on the livelihoods of rural communities – exacerbates historical land conflicts between different ethnic and/or tribal groups. Similarly, cross-border trading is a source of livelihood for many, but rapid urbanisation, particularly from rural to urban settings, and constantly changing demographics, are also factors.

Finally, participants identified the digital space and a lack of capacity locally to understand the scale of and address online harms as a key concern: for example, it was noted that terrorists, extremists and traffickers continue to devise new and sophisticated ways to use digital currencies to finance trade in contraband goods and fund other illicit activities, while also exploiting online platforms to reach larger markets or to radicalise and recruit. Most local governments are struggling to find capacity (both human and financial resources, as well as expertise) to implement programming to strengthen digital citizenship and literacy, although some cities are partnering with radio stations to raise awareness about online harms.

Key Themes

1. Sub-National Cross-Border Collaboration in Practice

The workshop showcased several innovative city-led efforts to strengthen cross-border local-local collaboration against hate, extremism and other threats to social cohesion and community safety. This includes:

Collaboration between Busia (Kenya) and Busia (Uganda) to promote and better coordinate trade and joint efforts to strengthen local economies.

Peter Odima, then-County Executive Committee Member with Busia County Government in Kenya, shared that Busia Municipality (one of the County’s two primary municipalities) has partnered with Busia in Uganda to launch a one-stop border post that is jointly managed by both local governments. The post operates as a formal border crossing that monitors cross-border traffic and trade, thus enabling both municipalities to better understand the scale of day-to-day demographic shifts and allocate resources accordingly.
Cross-border visits, joint social activities and communications campaigns between Mahagi (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Nebbi (Uganda) to address intolerance between Ugandan and Congolese communities.

Geoffrey Ngiriker, Mayor of Nebbi Municipality, shared that he was inspired by Strong Cities’ Border Municipalities Working Group to initiate cross-border engagements with Mahagi in 2024 with a view to implementing “joint operations that could contain issues of hate and extremism and address border-related conflicts”. The local governments of Mahagi and Nebbi have since come together to co-host plays, sports tournaments and other gatherings to normalise relationships and build positive interaction between Congolese and Ugandan communities. Nebbi Municipality has also coordinated with a Church of Uganda-run radio station to further spread positive messaging about their Congolese ‘brothers and sisters’ across the border and to raise awareness about the intercultural activities Nebbi and Mahagi co-host.

We treat our cross-border counterparts as part of our own community rather than as separate commuities
Geoffrey Ngiriker, Mayor, Nebbi Municipality

Cross-border delegations and implementation of jointly managed border schools and trade markets between West Pokot (Kenya) and Moroto (Uganda).

As shared by Deputy Governor Achaulle Robert Komolle of West Pokot County, the County often experiences clashes between its different ethnic communities as well as with those in neighbouring Uganda, which stem from competition over resources such as land, cattle and access to water and have been exacerbated by climate-induced droughts. To address this, the County has implemented:
- Cross-border peace meetings and agreements, involving community leaders from both sides of the border, to address and resolve sources of conflict. For example, in March 2024, the Deputy Governor led a delegation to Moroto (Uganda), convening representatives of various ethnic groups and the Ugandan national government to agree to a series of provisions to mitigate cross-border inter-ethnic conflicts. The meeting resulted in a joint communiqué between all actors, which outlines commitments to facilitate inter-ethnic reconciliation, such as an immediate cessation of hostilities, a greater security presence along the border and provision of compensation to those who lost cattle and other resources in recent violence.
- The launch of Peace Border Schools, where the County Government partnered with local communities to build classrooms wherein youth from different ethnic communities (across both sides of the border) can receive their education together. This has strengthened inter-ethnic interactions, with an evaluation of the Peace Border Schools showing that they create positive interactions between pupils of diverse ethnic backgrounds and their parents, while also supporting the local economy, with different ethnic communities settling and conducting business near the schools.

Cross-border sports tournaments in Koboko (Uganda), which encourage positive interactions between communities in Koboko and those in neighbouring South Sudan and the DRC. As Patric Ogweng, Town Clerk, shared, these tournaments also serve as a mechanism through which to integrate and reduce stigmas against Koboko’s own Congolese and Sudanese migrant and refugee population, fostering a sense of camaraderie and sportsmanship where long-term residents see migrants and refugees as teammates rather than as threats to local resources.

2. Investing in Community-Based Approaches to Addressing Local Challenges

The workshop also highlighted the diversity of ways local governments are investing in their communities as partners in addressing hate, extremism and other safety and security challenges. Amongst the practices shared were:

Community policing, whereby community members are trained to support with early-warning and proactive efforts to mitigate local concerns and challenges. The workshop revealed the significant progress that has been made by cities in East Africa to implement structured, city-led community policing initiatives, inspired in part by what they learned at Strong Cities exchanges with Cape Town and Stellenbosch in South Africa (for example, at a December 2023 learning visit to Cape Town).

In Cape Town and Stellenbosch, the local governments rely heavily on Neighbourhood Watch (groups of community members) to identify and address local concerns and insecurities before they manifest into violence, whether this relates to petty crime, gang-related and other more serious crimes, hate crimes and other threats against social cohesion. Both local governments work with their regional government (Western Cape) to provide training and equipment to Neighbourhood Watch groups, accrediting them as official partners on safety and security. As mentioned by Mzwakhe Nqavashe, Portfolio Chairperson for Safety and Security with the City of Cape Town, the City credits its extensive Neighbourhood Watch ecosystem for largely avoiding the scale of xenophobic violence and riots that spread across South Africa in 2019, with Neighbourhood Watch groups a vital source of information and early-warning against rising tensions that the groups could then mitigate collaboratively with the local government.

In East Africa, ‘Nyumba Kumi’ (ten households in Swahili) is a traditional and more informal model of households working together to take care of their neighbourhood. Inspired by what they learned from Cape Town, Busia County (Kenya), and Nansana Municipality (Uganda) have both taken steps to tap into the tradition of Nyumba Kumi but to formalise it and give it the structured approach of Neighbourhood Watch. In Nansana, with support from Strong Cities’ ESA Regional Hub, the Municipality hosted technical officers from Stellenbosch for training on Neighbourhood Watch, a city-city partnership that has resulted in over 30 groups being launched in Nansana, each operating with a strict Code of Conduct and a five-year Memorandum of Understanding between the two municipalities to sustain this and further scale peer learning on safety and security. Among others, Gertrude Nansukusa, the Neighbourhood Watch Focal Point for Nansana Municipality, credits the model for:
- Strengthening youth engagement and women’s inclusion in safety and security matters, with young people and women making up a large number of the Neighbourhood Watch Groups;
- Strengthening trust among community members, the local government and law enforcement; increased communitywide awareness of good personal safety practices (with Neighbourhood Watch groups educating communities on how to be vigilant, identify and report concerns);
- A strengthened local economy as businesses feel safer to stay open longer with groups patrolling the streets to deter petty crimes; and
- Greater social cohesion overall as a result of the creation of an ecosystem of groups united in keeping Nansana safe.

The impacts have been so significant that mayors of other Ugandan cities, such as Masaka and Nebbi, have committed to visiting Nansana in Autumn 2025 to undertake a benchmarking exercise to inform their own implementation of the Neighbourhood Watch model.

Community trust is our first line of defence. We achieve safety when everyone feels included and is empowered [to contribute]
Gertrude Nansukusa, Neighbourhood Watch Focal Person, Nansana Municipality

Dedicated public spaces for positive messaging and engagement, where local governments have started investing in physical spaces and infrastructure to address youth idleness, marginalisation and other obstacles to community togetherness.

For example, Joseph Makwina, Mayor of Blantyre (Malawi) shared that his City is building physical spaces dedicated entirely to engaging young people in healthy activities, such as art, sports and music. In Kyengera Town (Uganda), the town council has invested in physical spaces (or Talking Compounds) dedicated to dialogue and messages of peace, which feature youth-made art promoting unity and coexistence. Joseph Semugera Bitoko, a Councillor in Kyengera Town, shared that they purposely partnered with schools and children to establish these spaces in recognition that children “can be good ambassadors for social and climate justice, peace and unity” and empowering them from a young age to be involved in such efforts can build their resilience to hate and extremism in the long run.
Digital literacy and digitalisation, with some local governments upskilling their communities – particularly youth – to navigate online spaces safely and investing in digitalisation, recognising that more and more people are online and that this provides opportunities for strengthening engagement between communities and between communities and the local government.

For example, Maputo (Mozambique) has created a Digital Youth Centre, which is a platform to upskill youth on various topics, including navigating the online world safely. It features training materials on digital hygiene and literacy, as well as employability resources, to support young people not only as they use social media, but also as they enter the job market.

In Busia, the County has collaborated with the national government to launch the AjiraDigital Hub, which provides virtual employability training and resources. In Mombasa (Kenya), the County partners with youth innovators to build and maintain mobile applications to support youth entrepreneurship (e.g., through training) and raise awareness about local job opportunities. In Stellenbosch, WhatsApp is used to communicate with residents, with the Municipality managing a Protection Services channel that provides daily updates on local safety and security trends and operations.

City Spotlight: Villa Gorongosa (Mozambique)

The Challenge: Ville Gorongosa is home to several former fighters in the country’s civil war that ended in 1992, as well as a significant albino community, with both groups (and their families – including children) historically subjected to significant marginalisation and stigma. The municipality’s proximity to Gorongosa National Park has also made it a hub for wildlife traffickers, poachers and other criminal actors, who seek to exploit the Park’s resources for monetary gain. Further, Gorongosa National Park itself is sometimes used as a hiding spot for criminals, including those who flee from neighbouring countries, with such individuals passing through the municipality on their way into the park.

The Approach: To address this diverse set of challenges, the Municipality:

Launched a rehabilitation and reintegration programme for former fighters focused on both the individuals that are reintegrating and the communities into which they are doing so. This includes the Municipality removing school fees for children of former fighters, given many former fighters were denied job opportunities by virtue of being associated with conflict and can therefore not pay for family members to go to school, creating long-term generational consequences. This also includes awareness campaigns to humanise their lived experiences and raise awareness about the impacts of marginalisation not just on marginalised individuals but on the prosperity of the town as a whole. Such campaigns have also been used to improve tolerance and reduce stigma against albino communities.
Works with the National Park to run various social initiatives, including to advance girls’ education, creating creative arts and sports-focused youth clubs to engage young people in productive extracurricular activities, and providing Portuguese lessons to indigenous / tribal children to support their integration into broader Mozambican society (and, when the time comes, job market) where Portuguese is the dominant language.
Runs awareness raising campaigns about different types of organised crime, particularly trafficking, to educate residents on the long-term consequences and harms of such activity and remind them that local, legal livelihood opportunities exist.

3. The Gaps – Local – Regional Collaboration

The workshop provided an opportunity to discuss how EAC, SADC and international organisations such as the UNDP are managing border-related challenges and the role local governments can play to support such efforts.

David Sigano, CEO of the East Africa Law Society, presented his findings from an EACLGA-commissioned study on alignment of local government policies with the EAC’s regional integration efforts. He noted that there is little alignment between local policy and the EAC’s regional integration priorities. Much of this is due to a lack of direct engagement between the EAC and local governments, with the latter largely unaware of what it can do to implement the EAC’s priorities. This limitation is exacerbated by the fact that local governments are not represented in the EAC technical working groups or governance structure.

He shared a number of findings from the study that point to the benefits of involving local governments more directly in the EAC’s work. For example, he shared that local governments can play a key role in raising citizens’ awareness of the EAC’s integration efforts and what this means for creating a more socially cohesive and inclusive East Africa, adding that his study found that most citizens are completely unaware of what the EAC is trying to do. He added that border municipalities have a particularly important role to play in helping the EAC implement its vision of a common market that emphasises the “free [cross-border] movement of people, labour, services and rights of establishment and residence”.

Leonardo Vitangui, Project Manager with SADC, presented on SADC’s latest analysis of regional threats. While the regional and country-specific overviews provided were helpful, there was consensus that there needs to be more proactive engagement between SADC and local governments, not only to create a more granular understanding of the threats but also to share data in an actionable format with them on a more consistent basis.

Next Steps

The workshop concluded with breakout groups focused on some of the most promising and relevant practices shared at the workshop, with each group identifying next steps and priorities. These included:

Group 1 – Neighbourhood Watch: Nansana Municipality committed to hosting other cities for benchmarking exercises, including Masaka and Nebbi, while peer learning between Nansana and Stellenbosch will continue as the former seeks to scale Neighbourhood Watch even further.

Group 2 – Talking Compounds: Busia, Taita Taveta and Wajir Counties in Kenya all expressed interest in implementing a version of Kyengera Town’s Talking Compounds model.

Group 3 – Migration Management: Koboko Municipality (Uganda), which has a robust and inclusive approach to managing migration, invited counterparts from across the region to come see its integration efforts in practice. SALGA and Musina Municipality (South Africa) committed to taking Koboko up on this offer and to conduct a site visit in Autumn 2025. SALGA committed to sharing migration management learnings with local governments across South Africa, where xenophobia and anti-migrant violence are increasingly a problem.

Group 4 – Coastal Partnerships: Cape Town, Mombasa (Kenya) and Zanzibar (Tanzania) seek to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on maintaining safety, security and social cohesion as popular, rapidly growing coastal cities. The MoU would commit each city to investing in peer-learning on youth and women’s empowerment, community policing, social media for good, environmental conservation and more.

Group 5 – Other Practices: Bukavu (Democratic Republic of the Congo) seeks to learn more from Blantyre on how it addresses broader governance challenges as it grapples with rapid urbanisation, while Blantyre would like to learn from Bukavu on how it manages crime, noting that despite being in an active conflict zone, Bukavu does not have much crime. Meanwhile, Villa Gorongosa would like to formally twin with Blantyre on maintaining social cohesion in the context of elections.

Beyond city-specific commitments, organisations such as EAC and SADC identified next steps based on the workshop’s discussions. SADC, for example, noted that it would like to work with SALGA, other Southern African local government associations and Strong Cities, to make its threat monitoring data useful and actionable for local governments and “to build a common framework focused on combating extremism and terrorism”. The EAC, following findings from the study represented by the East African Law Society, seeks to include local governments in its various technical working groups and proposes to reinstate EACLGA (which hosts Strong Cities’ ESA Regional Hub) as an observer to ensure EAC strategies and frameworks take into account the perspectives and, more broadly, engage local government.

Finally, with the appetite for peer learning and city-focused capacity-building only growing across ESA, Strong Cities will continue its efforts to mobilise resources to sustain its portfolio in the region beyond the conclusion of the three-year STRIVE Cities project, and to advocate for a role for local government in national and regional safety and security initiatives. Strong Cities will also explore virtual modes of engagement to enable more regular and consistent exchange between members of its Border Municipalities Working Group.

Additional Resources

ESA Event Report: How Local Governments Can Prevent Hate, Extremism and Polarisation and Promote Unity and Social Cohesion in Malawi. Strong Cities Network, March 2024.
ESA City Spotlights: eThekwini Municipality (South Africa), Mandera County (Kenya) Mukaza Commune (Burundi), Nansana Municipality (Uganda), Stellenbosch Municipality (South Africa)
Strong Cities Policy Brief: National-Local Cooperation: A Pillar of City-Led Prevention of Hate, Extremism and Polarisation – A Practice Update. Strong Cities Network, December 2024.
Global Counterterrorism Forum’s National-Local Cooperation Toolkit, September 2023
A Guide for City-Led Response. Strong Cities Network, April 2024
Preventing and Responding to Election Disruption and Violence: Ten Considerations for Cities, Strong Cities Network, March 2024
A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, September 2023
A Guide for Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, September 2023
Addressing the Overlooked Role of African Cities in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, Strong Cities Network, July 2022

Donors

Contact Information

For more information on this event and the Strong Cities Network East and Southern Africa Regional Hub under the STRIVE Cities Initiative, please contact Gertrude Rose Gamwera, the Head of Hub at [email protected]

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ESA Regional Hub: Regional Workshop on the Role of Border Municipalities in Addressing Hate, Extremism, Trafficking and Other Threats to Safety and Security

Key Findings

Threats & Key Challenges

Key Themes

1. Sub-National Cross-Border Collaboration in Practice

2. Investing in Community-Based Approaches to Addressing Local Challenges

City Spotlight: Villa Gorongosa (Mozambique)

3. The Gaps – Local – Regional Collaboration

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