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

Publication Date:

13/09/2000

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— 18 minutes reading time

Summary

On 30 July – 1 August 2024, Strong Cities Network’s East & Southern (ESA) Regional Hub convened mayors, municipal directors and local council chairpersons, youth leaders, representatives from Zanzibar Association of Local Government Authorities (ZALGA), and national, regional and international partners for a workshop on Strengthening Youth – Local Government Engagement and Cross-Border City-City Collaboration to Prevent Hate, Extremism and Polarisation in Zanzibar.

The workshop, which took place in Zanzibar with support from the European Union through its STRIVE Cities initiative, came at the request of officials from ZALGA and Zanzibar Urban Municipal Council (ZUMC) following their participation in other Strong Cities activities, including a learning visit to Mombasa (Kenya) on youth-local government engagement and a regional workshop in Arusha (Tanzania).

These engagements – and the exposure they gave to city-led prevention practices from across ESA – helped ZUMC and ZALGA identify four practice areas that need to be strengthened to effectively prevent hate and extremism in Zanzibar: 1) youth-local government engagement; 2) community-based early warning; 3) cross-border city-city collaboration and 4) national-local cooperation (NLC). These areas are now the focus of a long-term technical assistance programme being delivered by the ESA Regional Hub for Zanzibari local governments. The programme leverages expertise from Mombasa County and the City of Cape Town (South Africa), both of which have robust, relevant practices to share.

This workshop was delivered as part of this programme, disseminating proven good practices for youth-local government engagement to other cities across Pemba and Unguja (the two islands that make up Zanzibar). It convened local leaders and youth to discuss emerging threats and needs for response, while also providing them with the opportunity to learn from Mombasa’s and Cape Town’s different models for engaging young people as partners in strengthening social cohesion.

The final day of the workshop focused on cross-border city-city collaboration, providing a platform to discuss challenges that come with the porous maritime border between Mombasa and Zanzibar and to brainstorm a way forward for greater collaboration between local governments both within Zanzibar, and between Mombasa and Zanzibar.

Several key findings emerged from the discussions:

Youth-Local Government Engagement

City and youth leaders are concerned about rising levels of criminality and drug abuse amongst young people, in turn contributing to their vulnerability to extremist recruitment.
Generally, youth feel there is a lack of sufficient socioeconomic opportunities and healthy pathways for making a living.
While there are existing structures for youth-local government engagement, such as youth councils, these are removed from and not currently utilised by local governments.
More should be done to promote values of peace and inclusivity amongst young people, including by ensuring (digital) citizenship, critical thinking and conflict resolution skills are taught in schools.
Local governments should partner with youth to amplify positive messaging via social media.
A limited mandate and budget constraints at the local level are obstacles to the sustainable implementation of city-led youth engagement efforts. Therefore, the Regional Hub should include enhanced NLC as a priority for its engagement in Zanzibar.

Cross-Border City-City Collaboration

There is growing concern about anti-Kenyan sentiment in Zanzibar, catalysed by the perception that Kenyans are exploiting the porous maritime border between Mombasa and Zanzibar to find employment in Zanzibar and smuggle goods out of Zanzibar to sell in Mombasa. This creates the perception that Kenyans are depriving Zanzibaris of income.
The porous border has also led to the existence of illegal (i.e., unregistered and unmonitored) ports, which in turn enables unregulated migration, leaving local officials unprepared to address population fluctuations.
There is a need for formal collaboration between Zanzibar, via ZALGA, and Mombasa County Government, to strengthen border management and rising levels of concern amongst residents of Mombasa and Zanzibar that the other is exploiting the porous border for illicit purposes, such as smuggling.

Threats & Key Challenges

Youth-Local Government Engagement

City officials and youth leaders expressed concern about rising levels of crime and other anti-social behaviour amongst young people, recognising that this exacerbates their vulnerability to extremism. For example, participants pointed to increasing levels of drug abuse amongst young people, and that unemployment is driving them to engage in nefarious activities such as deforestation and illegal fishing. Measures to deter such crimes are, in turn, framed by some young people as efforts by local government actors and the Zanzibari government to oppress youth and deny them what little socioeconomic opportunities they feel they have.

Further, while there was recognition of the Zanzibari government’s effort to deploy livelihood initiatives, youth participants shared they were largely unaware and unable to access such initiatives. They pointed to the need for the Zanzibari government to enhance its communications and work with local governments to ensure they are disseminating such opportunities to young residents, and that youth have the capacity (e.g., technical skills) to apply for such opportunities. Youth participants additionally underscored the need for empowerment programmes to include capacity-building of transferable skills, such as project/business management, which would enable them not only to leverage livelihood opportunities but also to sustain the outcomes of such opportunities. As Sabrina Said Soud, Executive Director of Thamini Jamii, a youth-led civic engagement organisation, noted, “Youth have not been empowered enough. We need to be assisted and empowered on how to coordinate and organise our businesses.”

Rising levels of migration and urbanisation were also identified as a challenge. Participants noted that with Zanzibar becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination, individuals from across East Africa and beyond are migrating to Zanzibar to take part in the tourism industry. This leaves some young people feeling as though they are unable to benefit from the tourism economy as the job market becomes too competitive with the influx of foreign nationals, in turn fuelling anti-migrant sentiment.

In addition, as shared by Mohammed Jamal Nassor, Coordinator with ZAFAYCO, a youth empowerment organisation, discriminatory practices by local law enforcement and a lack of accountability are adding to frustrations amongst young people, particularly those from religious or ethnic minorities. He shared an example of youth being arrested for consuming food publicly during the month of Ramadhan and that this threatens to create an environment where religious discrimination is normalised.

Together, these challenges create an environment that leaves many young people feeling disenfranchised, without opportunities to constructively share their needs and priorities with local governments and the Zanzibari government.

Cross-Border City-City Collaboration

Participants shared that the primary challenges resulting from the porous maritime border between Mombasa and Zanzibar are smuggling of goods, illegal fishing and unregulated migration. Local government officials shared that the latter is of particular concern as it leaves them unaware of the demographic composition of their cities and thus unable to adapt public service provision accordingly. They shared that the inability to prepare properly for demographic fluctuations causes strains in service delivery that in turn fosters frustrations amongst residents, who feel they are inadequately provided for.

The porous border is also fuelling anti-Kenyan sentiment in Zanzibar. Hamad Hamad, Mayor, Chake Chake Municipality, situated on Pemba Island, shared that his residents feel “business is taken from local Zanzibaris” by youth who travel from Mombasa to Pemba and illegally harvest cloves to smuggle and sell them in Mombasa. He notes that residents in Chake Chake feel “the porous border benefits Kenyan people more than them”, and that the loss of revenue is causing “anger and stigma against Kenyans”. He additionally shared that the loss of revenue in turn impacts trust in local government, as residents feel the local government isn’t doing enough to protect their livelihoods.

Munira Hamisi, Director: Resilience and Youth Affairs, Mombasa County Government said that the County Government has had to arrest youth from Pemba for fishing without permits in Mombasa. She pointed to the same struggle: rising levels of anti-Tanzanian sentiment as a result of perceptions that Zanzibari youth are ‘stealing’ revenue from Kenyans.

Finally, there is concern about the porous border enabling extremist recruitment. In 2022, for example, at least 20 men went missing in Zanzibar, with families of some missing persons convinced that the men left Zanzibar, crossing easily into Kenya to join groups like al-Shabaab. Participants also expressed concerns about known extremists exploiting the maritime border to seek shelter in Zanzibar (e.g., hiding from authorities in Kenya and/or mainland Tanzania) and spread extremist messaging.

Key Themes

1. Strengthen Youth-Local Government Engagement through Platforms, Partnerships and Empowerment Opportunities

Participants identified multiple practices that Zanzibari local governments should take forward to better a) engage young people to understand their needs and b) partner with them to address such needs. One such practice is youth councils that are connected to local government. While participants shared that there are already youth councils in Zanzibar, these are loosely structured, informal platforms that operate entirely independently of local governments. City officials and youth leaders agreed that local governments should invest in embedding them into the local government where they do exist and create them where they don’t.

The consensus to create a more structured approach to youth councils in Zanzibar was inspired by a presentation on Cape Town’s Junior City Council, which is fully integrated into and considered part of the local government. 50 youth are selected to serve a yearlong term using a competitive application process, which is rolled across the city with priority going to schools in communities where crime rates are particularly high. Junior city councillors then nominate a Junior Mayor, Junior Deputy Mayor, Junior City Speaker and Junior Chief Whip, modelled after the City of Cape Town’s council structure. These youth are mentored by other councillors on all aspects of local governance, consulted in budget and policymaking decisions, and empowered to represent the City at events. Each Junior Councillor is also supported (by their local ward councillor) to deliver a project within their communities that addresses a local need. As noted by JP Smith, Mayoral Committee Member: Safety and Security, City of Cape Town, the Junior City Council ultimately serves multiple important functions: a) it can hold the City Council accountable for implementing policies and programmes that address the actual needs of young people, b) it embeds youth in local governance by ensuring Junior Councillors are connected with officials ranging from ward councillors to the Mayor and Deputy Mayor, and c) it strengthens youth awareness of how local governments serve communities and inspires active citizenship and public participation.

To address youth idleness, which was identified as a driver of extremism, participants agreed that local governments could invest in youth as partners in public service delivery. In Mombasa, for example, the County Government’s Mombasa Ni Yangu Initiative inducted over 3000 young people into various departments of the County Government, training them to serve as beach safety martials, traffic officers, tour guides, information centre agents, neighbourhood cleaning agents, to support disaster management, and more. The programme runs year-round, ensuring such opportunities are provided in overlap with school holidays, when youth are more likely to become idle and/or engage in anti-social or harmful behaviours. As Munira Hamisi, Director: Resilience and Youth Affairs, Mombasa County Government shared, the programme has multiple benefits: it provides opportunities to young people to contribute to public service delivery, in turn increasing the County’s resources and capacity for public service delivery and gives young people transferable skills to support their employability. Youth leaders from Zanzibar commended the initiative and encouraged their mayors and other local government officials to similarly invest in youth as partners.

Participants also agreed that city officials must invest in youth-led organisations that already provide essential services to build their capacity to prevent hate and extremism. Many such youth organisations already have access to and credibility with vulnerable peers and can thus also help build their resilience against hate and extremism. Importantly, this reinforced one of the outcomes of a youth-focused dialogue that ZUMC hosted in February 2024, inspired by their participation in the Strong Cities’ learning visit to Mombasa in November 2023. At the dialogue, youth leaders and city officials agreed to the establishment of a youth-led NGO that would serve as an umbrella organisation for other youth-led organisations and be responsible for coordinating – in consultation with city officials – youth-led prevention of hate and extremism.

There is an opportunity to engage youth to help local governments adapt and really speak to people through social media. We can work with local governments on this… If you need to raise awareness amongst youth and engage them, social media is the way but it must be done with youth.
Sabrina Said Soud, Executive Director, Thamini Jamii, Zanzibar

Finally, to address religious, ethnic and political discrimination, youth leaders encouraged city officials to partner with young people to use social media as a platform for amplifying messages of coexistence, peace and inclusivity. Participants also agreed that city officials must invest in building conflict resolution skills and promoting values of peace and inclusivity from a young age by working with schools to roll out (digital) citizenship education.

Local governments must invest in programmes that promote critical thinking, tolerance and understanding. We need to involve young people in the decision-making process, raise their awareness of how policies affect their lives and help them to feel empowered.
Hamad Hamad, Mayor, Chake Chake Municipality, Zanzibar

2. Addressing Cross-Border Challenges through Capacity-Building and City-City Collaboration

Participants agreed that local governments play a vital role in addressing the variety of challenges that come with Zanzibar’s porous maritime border with Kenya, noting that they are often the first to have to respond to such challenges but lack the mandate and resources to do so effectively. As Mohammed Said, Mayor, Mkoani Town Council, Zanzibar noted, “Zanzibar cannot avoid porous borders as an island. We need to learn to coexist with the porous border by creating an environment where local governments are equipped to mitigate its exploitation and impacts”.

[Illegal ports] make it hard to manage migration and provide the necessary integration support. We need support to be able to manage and understand migration… we are seeing increased incidents of illegal migrants being arrested and of anti-migrant hate.
Mohammed Mohammed, Acting Secretary General, ZALGA

Participants discussed the steps that local governments in Zanzibar can take to address cross-border challenges, which include:

Creating a structured approach to early warning, including through strengthening local-local collaboration: city officials observed that while Zanzibar has a practice similar to Neighbourhood Watch, which the City of Cape Town presented as a model for community-based early warning and community-city information-sharing (see below), in Zanzibar it operates informally without any support or connection with local governments. Officials from both Pemba and Unguja islands agreed that a more formalised approach led by local governments could help cities understand and better address community needs and threats to social cohesion, such as rising anti-Kenyan sentiment. Such a model can also strengthen trust between communities and their local government, with city officials expressing concern about declining levels of trust due to the revenue loss that results from cross-border smuggling and strain in public service caused by unregulated migration.

The shehiya, the smallest level of local government administration in Zanzibar, was identified as the ideal forum to drive a more structured approach to Neighbourhood Watch. Some participants agreed that the shehiya itself, as a 12-person committee in charge of public service at the village level, could serve the function of Neighbourhood Watch, but that shehiyas must then make a more explicit effort to a) consistently engage communities on their concerns and b) communicate concerns to higher levels of administration, such as town and municipal councils, who can support with addressing such concerns.
Pursue a formal collaboration framework with Mombasa: Participants agreed that a formal collaboration framework between Zanzibar and Mombasa could help address cross-border challenges, such as population boons and rising levels of xenophobia. The City of Cape Town shared that it has mutual aid agreements on disaster risk management with its neighbouring municipalities. City officials shared that “with our very rapidly increasing populations, we are also struggling significantly with rising levels of xenophobia,” and that “these agreements allow us to activate help to respond to these challenges”. City officials from Zanzibar and Mombasa expressed interest to implement such a framework, with the objectives being to work together to manage ungoverned areas of the border and to do joint prevention programming, such as messaging, campaigns and in-person activities (e.g., cultural exchanges, markets) to prevent anti-Kenyan and anti-Tanzanian sentiment from rising further. It was agreed that ZALGA would pursue this effort with Mombasa County Government on behalf of and with support from Zanzibari local governments.

We have seen piracy, drug trafficking and insurgents re-emerging for again for the first time in years – how can the blue economy prosper if maritime security is not being addressed?
Emilio Rossetti, Deputy Head of Delegation, EU Delegation to Tanzania and the East African Community

Neighbourhood Watch, City of Cape Town

Challenges: Rising levels of crime and xenophobia, driven by population boons and rapid urbanisation.
Approach: Cape Town’s approach to Neighbourhood Watch, traditionally a petty crime prevention model, empowers residents to contribute to community safety and social cohesion. Community members can come together to form Neighbourhood Watch groups, which can receive accreditation from the City, making them eligible for training on good safety practices and the provision of resources (e.g., vests, radios). The City also supports Neighbourhood Watch groups by connecting them with relevant actors from the South African Police Service and Western Cape Provincial Government, and by supporting them to hold events – such as sports or cultural exchange – to bring communities together.
Impact: Cape Town now has over 30,000 individuals involved in Neighbourhood Watch. As shared by JP Smith, the model has had multiple positive impacts:
- It helped the City prevent civil disorder in 2021, when insurrection riots spread across South Africa causing the death of over 300 people. Cape Town was largely spared from violence and looting, with the City crediting its ability to mobilise Neighbourhood Watch groups to spread messages of nonviolence and work closely with the Metro Police to address tensions before they escalated to violence;
- They are a platform through which the local government and police can be held accountable for effective and just public service that meets the actual rather than perceived needs of communities;
- They ultimately enable the whole-of-society approach to prevention of hate and extremism that is internationally recognised as good practice by enabling collaboration between civil society, local businesses (who report concerns and engage with Neighbourhood Watch) and local, national and provincial governments;
- They help address barriers to reporting: Neighbourhood Watches offer an alternative platform through which residents that are distrustful or fearful of police can report anti-social behaviour, rising tensions and crime.

3. National-Local Cooperation to Sustain Implementation

While local government officials shared they are keen to implement practices that were shared at the workshop, they expressed concern about sustainability in the absence of a mandate and support from the central government to do so, pointing to a need for greater NLC on the topic of preventing hate, extremism and polarisation. They observed that this is particularly so regarding cross-border challenges, sharing that (illegal) migration and border management more broadly are considered the purview solely of the central government. This despite it being cities that must address the impacts of the porous border, whether this is local revenue loss due to smuggling of goods, or rising levels of anti-Kenyan hate and the strains on public service delivery that result from unregulated migration.

Participants also shared that, while the central government does engage local officials, this is mostly limited to appointed officials and that mayors, who are elected, are rarely proactively consulted on policymaking and programming. This leaves mayors with no opportunity to meaningfully inform safety and security-related decisions and other prevention efforts designed by the central government, despite the insight and understanding they can provide to enable national policies and programmes to effectively address local needs.

City officials agreed that ZALGA, as an umbrella organisation of local governments, is well-positioned to advocate for the role of local governments in prevention, with support from the Strong Cities Network. They additionally reinforced the need for a national-local dialogue that includes local governments of all sizes, the Zanzibari government and Tanzanian national government and provides a platform for cities to showcase the vital role they can play in achieving the country’s National Counter Terrorism Strategy and related frameworks.

Next Steps

The workshops concluded with several implementation priorities:

Local governments & ZALGA:

Local governments committed to pursuing a more structured and embedded approach to youth councils, following the model of Cape Town’s Junior City Council. The City of Cape Town agreed to support this effort, starting with ZUMC, which led the youth dialogue in February 2024 and is driving the establishment of a youth-led NGO to coordinate youth-led prevention efforts.
City officials also agreed to work with ZALGA to advocate for policy and legal reforms that enable greater youth representation in local governance and greater involvement of cities in border and migration management.
City officials committed to improving coordination between the different levels of local government administration, particularly to ensure shehiyas are represented in and consulted by town and municipal councils.
City officials also noted the importance and agreed to partner with young people to address hate and extremism, including by jointly delivering peace messaging programmes and raising awareness of city-led programmes that can reduce young people’s susceptibility to hateful and extremist messaging and propaganda.

Strong Cities Network:

As part of its technical assistance programme for Zanzibar, the ESA Regional Hub will host a national-local dialogue to strengthen NLC in prevention. The Hub will also support ZALGA in its advocacy for greater inclusion of local governments in national-level policymaking and prevention efforts.
The ESA Regional Hub will also facilitate additional peer-learning opportunities among Zanzibar, Mombasa and Cape Town, with participants expressing their 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

Donors & Partners

Contact Information

For more information on this event, please contact Gertrude Rose Gamwera Buyinga, Head of the ESA Regional Hub, at [email protected]

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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

Threats & Key Challenges

Key Themes

Neighbourhood Watch, City of Cape Town

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