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ESA Regional Hub: Strengthening Youth – Local Government Engagement and Cross-Border City-City Collaboration to Prevent Hate, Extremism and Polarisation in Zanzibar

Publication Date:

13/09/2024

Content Type:

Event Reports

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digital literacyESA Regional HubNeighbourhood WatchSTRIVE Citiesyouth councilsYouth Engagementyouth-local government engagementzanzibar

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Event Details

Description: A workshop on strengthening youth-local government engagement and cross-border city-city collaboration to prevent hate, extremism and polarisation in Zanzibar.

Where & When: 30 July – 1 August 2024, Zanzibar, Tanzania

Local Governments Represented

• Kenya: Mombasa County Government
• South Africa: City of Cape Town
• Tanzania:
  • Pemba Island (Zanzibar): Chake Chake Municipality, Micheweni District, Mkoani Town, Wete Town
  • Unguja Island (Zanzibar): Central Town, North ‘A’ Municipality, North ‘B’ Town, South District, West ‘A’ Municipality, West ‘B’ Municipality, Zanzibar City, Zanzibar Urban Municipality

Partners Represented

Youth-Led Organisations Governments:

• Lonamac Youth Organisation (Mombasa)
• Thamini Jamii Organisation
• ZAFAYCO
• Zanzibar Development for Youth Organisation
• Zanzibar Strategic Youth Development Organisation
• Zanzibar Youth Forum

Partners:

• European Committee for Training and Agriculture (CEFA)
• European Union Delegation to Tanzania and the East African Community
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Tanzania
• Southern African Development Community
• WeWorld
• Zanzibar Association of Local Government Authorities (ZALGA)

Key Takeaways

For Mayors & Cities

• Cities should embed existing youth councils into the local government and create youth councils where they don’t exist. These should be consulted on all aspects of local governance to create youth-informed policies and programmes.
• Cities need to invest in youth as partners in prevention and public service delivery through creating opportunities for them to contribute to the management and governance of their city, and providing the requisite training so they can access and make the most of such opportunities.
• Cities should support existing youth-led initiatives to add the prevention of hate and extremism to their organisational objectives, given many such organisations already have access to youth who are most vulnerable to extremist recruitment.
• Cities should incorporate digital literacy and citizenship education into schools and should partner with young people to use social media to promote peace and inclusivity. 
• Mayors and cities should adopt the Neighbourhood Watch model and other community policing initiatives that are human rights compliant and gender-sensitive to identify, raise awareness and address threats to social cohesion.

For National Governments

• The national government should support local governments to address cross-border challenges by giving them a mandate and resources to do so, particularly to address illegal cross-border migration.
• The national government should also strengthen policy and legal frameworks to empower local governments to more meaningfully and sustainably engage young people.
• The national government should also engage directly with mayors, who are elected (regardless of their political party), rather than limiting local government engagement to appointed officials.

For Partners & Donors

• Donors and partners should continue to advocate nationally and internationally for the role of local governments in preventing hate, extremism and polarisation, ensuring they are included in all relevant programmes.
• Where donors are funding youth-focused initiatives, they should focus on funding sustainable and impactful programmes that address the unique needs of local communities and that promote engagement with or otherwise involve local governments. This is to ensure such programmes address the root causes of insecurity amongst youth, which can include insufficient public service delivery and other challenges that local governments are best placed to address.

Next Steps

The workshops concluded with several implementation priorities. Local governments and ZALGA committed to pursuing a more structured approach to youth councils, which the City of Cape Town and the Strong Cities East and Southern Africa (ESA) Regional Hub will support with. This effort will start with the Zanzibar Urban Municipal Council, which led a youth dialogue in February 2024 and is driving the establishment of a youth-led NGO to coordinate youth-led prevention efforts. Cities will also work with ZALGA and the ESA Regional Hub to advocate for policy and legal reforms that provide a mandate and resources for local government-led prevention.

Further, as part of its technical assistance programme for Zanzibar, the ESA Regional Hub will host a national-local dialogue to strengthen national-local cooperation in prevention. The ESA Regional Hub will also create more opportunities for peer learning between Zanzibar, Mombasa and Cape Town, with participants expressing their appreciation and appetite for further city-city learning.

Additional Resources

• ESA City Spotlights: eThekwini Municipality (South Africa), Mandera County (Kenya) Mukaza Commune (Burundi), Nansana Municipality (Uganda), Stellenbosch Municipality (South Africa)
• 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
• Global Counterterrorism Forum’s National-Local Cooperation Toolkit, September 2023
• Addressing the Overlooked Role of African Cities in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, Strong Cities Network, July 2022

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