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ESA Regional Hub: Strengthening the Capacity of Border Municipalities to Prevent Hate, Extremism and Polarisation

Publication Date:

11/01/2024

Content Type:

Event Reports

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BorderCape TownCity-Led ActionESA Regional HubNational-Local CooperationpreventionSTRIVE Cities

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Event Details 

Description: A roundtable to strengthen the capacity of border municipalities to prevent hate, extremism and polarisation, organised at the request of mayors from East and Southern African border towns

Where & When: 11 – 12 December 2023, Cape Town, South Africa 

Partner: City of Cape Town, South Africa 

Cities Represented:

• Kenya: Busia County, Elgeyo Marakwet County, Mombasa County, Trans Nzoia County, Wajir County
• South Africa: Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, City of Cape Town, Stellenbosch Municipality
• Tanzania: Songea Municipality, Tunduru District
• Uganda: Kasese District (virtual), Masaka City, Koboko Municipality, Nansana Municipality, Nebbi Municipality 

Key Takeaways  

For Mayors & Cities:  

• By integrating prevention into an existing mandate, local governments can tap into existing resources and expertise to deliver prevention programmes, even in the absence of a nationally-given mandate (and dedicated national support) to do so.  
• Cities should invest in technology to support community safety: investments like CCTV can enhance feelings of security amongst residents and provide evidence to drive data-based solutions to local threats, while digital information-sharing dashboards can help cities more effectively coordinate and deploy their resources.  
• Coordinating community-level actors is one of the comparative advantages of local governments in prevention and they should tap into existing or invest in new multi-actor structures to do so.  
• Communities should be partners in (rather than just beneficiaries of) prevention. For example, local governments can build their capacity to support with identifying and mitigating emerging threats, delivering community-based prevention programmes, reaching marginalised individuals, protecting soft-targets and more.  
• Local governments should also partner with communities to consider how urban planning and regeneration can enhance social cohesion and reduce feelings of insecurity.  

For National Governments:  

• National governments should invest in local governments as interlocutors with community-based actors so that national responses to emerging threats are informed by the reality of what is needed on the ground.  
• National governments should encourage and empower local authorities to take on an active role in addressing the rising tide of hate, extremism and polarisation.  

For Partners & Donors:  

• Cities in East and Southern Africa – particularly remote border towns that are often under-resourced – require support to enhance their technological capabilities, including training to capacitate municipal staff on how to use such technology as a tool to enhance community safety.  
• Cities require additional guidance and examples of how urban design can promote social cohesion. Strong Cities can build on its Memorandum of Understanding with UN-Habitat, and partner with other relevant organisations, such as the South African Cities Network, to jointly produce such guidance. 

Next Steps 

Each participating city identified a series of prevention priorities based on their learnings from the City of Cape Town (see pages 2-3 of the Event Report). The ESA Regional Hub will support their implementation efforts. Priorities include:  

• long-term investments in technology to enhance community safety and multi-actor coordination  
• streamlining or creating infrastructure to more effectively deploy city resources in response to hate and extremism 
• cross-border peacekeeping initiatives that raise awareness around threats of hate and extremism and how cities can collaborate to respond  
• adaptation and implementation of practices like Neighbourhood Watch and the City of Cape Town’s Safer and Healthier Places of Worship Initiative  
• additional, dedicated peer learning and other capacity-building opportunities for border municipalities, with an added focus on convening cities that sit on opposite sides of a border
• including more cities in the ESA Regional Hub’s Border Municipalities Working Group  
• country-specific national-local dialogues with a focus on ensuring border towns are well-represented 

Additional Resources 

• A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network 
• A Guide for Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network 
• Addressing the Overlooked Role of African Cities in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, Strong Cities Network 
• Event Report: Learning Visit on Enhancing City-Youth Engagement in Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network 
• Municipal Case Studies, South African Cities Network 
• The Safety Case Studies Project, Safer Spaces 

Donors 

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