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Fifth Global Summit: Good Practices for Strengthening National – Local Cooperation in Prevention and Response

Publication Date:

21/12/2024

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Event Reports

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Cape TownCity-Led PreventionFifth Global SummitNational-Local Cooperation

— 9 minutes reading time

Introduction

On 3 – 5 December 2024, the Strong Cities Network held its Fifth Global Summit in Cape Town (South Africa), bringing together more than 140 participants, including 60 mayors and governors, as well as city officials, practitioners and partners from more than 90 cities and 40 countries around the world. The Summit included mayoral conversations, thematic parallel sessions and tabletop exercises – providing city officials from diverse contexts with opportunities to share and learn from city-led innovations and approaches to prevent and respond to hate, extremism and polarisation, and maintain social cohesion amid global crises.

The Summit agenda included a parallel session on National-Local Cooperation (NLC) – a  pillar of the Strong Cities Strategy (2023 – 2025) – providing an opportunity for participants to share successes and innovative practices in aligning approaches at the national and local levels in preventing and responding to hate, extremism and polarisation. Featuring insights from city leaders and practitioners across diverse geopolitical contexts, the session highlighted how trust, inclusivity, communication and contextual sensitivity are foundations for fostering effective and sustainable coordination between national and local stakeholders.

Featured Speakers

• Mohamed Nur, Mombasa County Commissioner, Ministry of Interior (Kenya) 
• Monica Muga, Executive Secretary, Homabay County (Kenya) 
• Kostadin Kostadinov, Mayor of Strumica (North Macedonia) 
• Edvin Sandstrom, Head of Research and Analysis, Swedish Center for Preventing Violent Extremism (Sweden) 

Key Takeaways

• A bottom-up approach is essential in developing national policies, strategies and frameworks so that national strategies correspond to the realities of the communities. It is particularly important to involve diverse voices and marginalised communities so that developed solutions are tailored to specific needs and vulnerabilities from all parts of the population.
  
  
• Trusted relationships between national and local officials are the foundation for successful NLC – which can be beneficial but also pose a challenge. Where there is a disagreement or political tension between the national and local government, building these relationships with specific individuals from national government can go a long way to enhance NLC. At the same time, if there is a change of positions or administrations, it may take time to build them and achieve the same level of cooperation.
  
  
• Coordination mechanisms, both horizontal and vertical, are essential for aligning efforts across sectors and governance levels, ensuring resources and expertise are deployed where they are most needed. These frameworks further provide structured mechanisms for addressing disagreements and adapting strategies over time, fostering proactive and continuous problem-solving.
  
  
• Transparent and consistent communication channels between national and local governments build trust, reduce misunderstandings and enable the real-time sharing of insights, ensuring that strategies are aligned and responsive to emerging threats.

National-Local Cooperation is Key for Effective Prevention

NLC is crucial for addressing complex, multifaceted challenges of hate, extremism and polarisation. National governments can bring a comprehensive, country-wide framework, resources, expertise, coordination capacity and strategic oversight, while local actors are uniquely positioned to understand community dynamics and are the level of government closest to, and often most trusted by, residents. Mohamed Nur, County Commissioner, Ministry of Interior (Kenya), shared how national – local cooperation on preventing violent extremism in Kenya has been instrumental in addressing the root causes of extremism and enhancing community resilience. The Kenyan government, through its National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), has worked closely with local governments and civil society organisations to develop and implement County Action Plans (CAPs). These plans are tailored to the specific needs and contexts of different regions, promoting a multisectoral approach to prevention that includes education, community engagement and economic empowerment of young people who are most at risk of radicalisation to violence.

Building on this, Monica Muga, Executive Secretary of Homa Bay County (Kenya), similarly emphasised the importance of productive national and local government partnerships in addressing security issues. Building mutual trust between national and local governments, especially in communities with historical mistrust or marginalisation, requires acknowledging past grievances, such as unequal resource distribution or political/ ethnical biases. For example, Homa Bay County, together with the national Kenyan government co-hosts public consultations that provide communities a platform to their grievances. In addition, the County, with support from Kenya’s National Cohesion Integration Commission (NCIC), is empowering local communities to lead peacebuilding initiatives by involving local elders and faith-based leaders in addressing ethnic-based hate narratives.

Kostadin Kostadinov, Mayor of Strumica (North Macedonia), shared challenges that can arise when the local and national administrations are governed by opposing political parties. Despite political challenges, the Mayor has been a vocal proponent for local governments in promoting collaboration with the national government. For Strumica, the municipality’s Local Prevention Council (LPC) – inspired by Strumica’s participation in Strong Cities Network – was a crucial mechanism for achieving this.

The LPC serves as a bridge between municipal authority, police, national agencies and residents. The Council meets monthly to proactively address issues such as public safety, social cohesion and traffic management. LPC meetings are open to the public. Through this forum, Mayor Kostadinov said that Strumica has been able to ensure that resources and other support it receives from the national government are leveraged to address the unique challenges of their community. He shared how the LPC has been instrumental in addressing issues of children begging on the streets and tackling violence and hate speech. These challenges require a coordinated effort, and the LPC ensures that schools, law enforcement and other national agencies, municipal authorities and civil society work together to design tailored interventions, such as working with the social services and schools to take children off the streets and back into schools, as well as tackling issues of violence and hate speech in schools.

Localised Approaches to Prevention and Response

The session highlighted the value of leveraging local knowledge and capacities for crafting effective solutions to violent extremism and related challenges. Edvin Sandström, Head of Research, Swedish Center for Preventing Violent Extremism, shared how the centre is working to integrate local communities into national prevention frameworks. The centre serves as a national hub for enhancing the effectiveness and coordination of preventive efforts against violent extremism across national, regional and local levels. By taking a hyper-local approach, the centre is looking at the unique challenges and contexts of each of the localities and then works with municipalities and relevant agencies to design evidence-based interventions.

Joseph Matovu, Mayor of Nansana Municipality (Uganda), echoed the significance of dialogue between central and local governments for developing cohesive prevention strategies. He shared how Strong Cities had facilitated national-local dialogues in Uganda, ensuring that local governments were involved in the review of Uganda’s National Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Strategy. By integrating local perspectives and experiences of the threat environment, he said that Uganda has enhanced its ability to address community-specific challenges, fostering a more unified national-local approach.

Overcoming Challenges in National-Local Collaboration

The session also addressed barriers to effective NLC, which can include mistrust, political differences, differing threat, needs and vulnerabilities perceptions, resource limitations and/or lack of awareness of the comparative advantages of each level of actor. For example, Kizito Wagalwa, Council of Governors (Kenya), said it was important fornational governments to better appreciate the complementary role of local governments, advocating for sustained dialogue to ensure that national policies and strategies are informed by and address ground realities.

Maroš Chmelík, Center of Community Organising (Slovakia), noted how political shifts in national leadership can impede the implementation of prevention strategies. This underscores the importance of maintaining local autonomy and upholding constitutional values even when national policies diverge from local priorities.

Benedetto Zacchiroli, President of the European Coalition of Cities Against Racism (ECCAR), emphasised the importance of creating independent national bodies that can provide impartial oversight and support local governments in combating racism and discrimination, irrespective of the national political priorities. For example, in Italy, the National Office Against Racial Discrimination (UNAR) in Italy is responsible for promoting equality and combating discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, age and sexual orientation. UNAR works with municipalities to develop local anti-discrimination action plans, as well as supports public institutions with training programs for officials to ensure they understand and apply anti-discrimination laws effectively. It also serves as a bridge between national and local level authorities ensuring alignment of policies and actions.

Next Steps

The session underscored the pivotal role of robust NLC in addressing challenges posed by hate, extremism and polarisation. By building trust, embracing inclusivity and fostering shared accountability, national and local governments can construct resilient societies capable of navigating complex issues. While obstacles remain, the session highlighted that sustained investments in strong partnerships between different levels of government are essential for crafting long-term solutions, ensuring that both national priorities and local needs are addressed.

Meaningful NLC is key to advancing local leadership in prevention. As such, Strong Cities will continue to promote and draw attention to good practices in cross-level collaboration and encourage its members and other cities, as well as national governments, to look for ways to enhance the structures, policies and programmes in their respective contexts that will bolster cooperation between national and local governments.

Further Resources

See our new policy brief on this topic:

• National-Local Cooperation: A Pillar of City-Led Prevention of Hate, Extremism and Polarisation – A Practice Update, Strong Cities Network, December 2024

Other Strong Cities policy briefs and resources include:

• City-Led Prevention of Hate, Extremism and Polarisation: Leveraging Local Youth Councils, Strong Cities Network, December 2024
• City-Led Youth Engagement in Addressing Hate, Extremism and Polarisation: 10 Recommendations for Cities, Strong Cities Network, December 2024
• Countering Hate Speech in Times of Crisis: Considerations for Mayors and Local Governments, Strong Cities Network, December 2024
• Creating Safe, Cohesive and Resilient Cities through Urban Planning & Design: Ten Considerations for Mayors and Local Governments, Strong Cities Network, December 2024
• A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism & Polarisation. Strong Cities Network, updated September 2024
• A Guide for Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism & Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, updated September 2024                                                                       
• A Guide for City-Led Response, Strong Cities Network, May 2024                                       
• The GCTF’s Good Practices on Strengthening National-Local Cooperation in P/CVE: Mapping the Implementation, Progress, Gaps, Needs and Priorities in Uganda, Strong Cities Network, 2022           
• Implementation of the GCTF Good Practices for National-Local Cooperation: Mapping Strengths and Challenges in East and Southern Africa, Strong Cities Network and RUSI, 2022
• City Spotlights Library, Strong Cities Network

Additional reading:

• A Roadmap for Operationalizing a “Whole of Society” Approach to Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism that Leads to Terrorism, Global Counterterrorism Forum, 2022                    
• Memorandum on Good Practices on Strengthening National-Local Cooperation in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism, Global Counterterrorism Forum, 2020

Donors & Partners

The Fifth Global Summit was made possible with generous support from the European Union, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Public Safety Canada, the US Department of State and the City of Cape Town. 

The views expressed in this session report do not necessarily reflect those of all Strong Cities Network members, the Management Unit or Summit sponsors and partners. 

Contact Information 

For more information about the Fifth Global Summit or the Strong Cities Network, please contact [email protected].

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