Search en

Strong Cities Network

Our resources

Resource hub
Tools & Guides for Cities
Beautiful colorful houses, architectural background, traditional little painted homes, the amazing unique architecture of an Italian coastal village, Cinque Terre
City directory
Meet our Members
Regional Hubs
Connect with your Regional Hub
global summit highlights
Fifth Global Summit December 2024
Join the network
Is your City a Strong City?
arrow-circle arrow-down-basicarrow-down arrow-left-small arrow-left arrow-right-small arrow-right arrow-up arrow closefacebooklinkedinsearch twittervideo-icon
News & Events Event Reports

Fifth Global Summit: Mayoral Conversation — City-Led Innovations in Community Safety

Publication Date:
21/12/2024
Content Type:
Share:
Tags:
Cape TownCity-Led InnovationsCity-Led Preventioncommunity safetyFifth Global SummitSustainable Prevention

— 11 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’s opening mayoral conversation focused on city-led innovations in community safety. It brought together mayors and other local leaders from around the world to discuss their strategies for fostering safe, cohesive and resilient cities. The conversation highlighted challenges and innovative locally-led approaches to address hate, extremism and polarisation. It underscored the interconnected and transnational nature of challenges cities face and the role of local leaders in shaping localised responses, as well as the shared urgency for cities to innovate and collaborate.

Featured Speakers

Key Takeaways

Threats and Key Challenges

This session underscored the extent to which cities worldwide are facing a wide range of complex threats to public safety and social cohesion. Hate speech and online disinformation continue to be pervasive challenges, amplifying divisions, eroding social cohesion and fostering an environment where extremism and hate that can lead to violence can thrive. Xenophobia, often fuelled by economic pressures, increasing urbanisation and demographic shifts, is leading to heightened tensions with, and in some cases violence targeting, refugees, migrants and other vulnerable groups. Additionally, violent extremist narratives continue to find new followers and pose a significant security threat. Following a year of contested elections globally, and the cumulative effect of successive global crises, speakers highlighted how there has been an erosion of trust in public institutions, further complicating efforts to maintain peace and stability at the local level.

Gledian Llatja, Mayor of Elbasan (Albania), shared that his city was known as a hotspot for foreign terrorist fighters who travelled to join conflicts in the Middle East between 2012 and 2015. At the time, this phenomenon took the local government by surprise because the authorities had not invested in or built meaningful relationship with residents. While this threat has subsided over the years, currently the city is facing a different set of challenges which includes the rise of hate speech (off- and online), particularly targeting women and minorities, as well as youth involvement in gangs and organised crime. 

Nadia Zourgui, Deputy Mayor for Security and Prevention, City and Eurometropolis of Strasbourg (France), shared that the December 2018 attack in Strasbourg, carried out by an ISIS-affiliated lone wolf, remains front of mind and part of a broader threat picture, including a rise of far-right extremism, which is contributing to rising xenophobia, racism and antisemitism. She noted how this is particularly concerning considering the city’s large immigrant community and one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe. She underscored the crucial role that local governments play in addressing these issues but cautioned that cities in France face obstacles in reaching their full prevention potential given that public safety and security are typically regarded to be within the purview of the national government.

Janice Zahn, Councilmember, Bellevue City Council (Washington, USA), also reflected on the rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia in her city, including incidents where Jewish spaces were defaced, and Muslim elected representatives targeted by hateful rhetoric, abuse and harassment. She noted that the rise in hate has been fuelled by social and economic pressures such as housing affordability and the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, she noted that the lack of clear definitions for hate has compounded the community’s fear and hesitancy to report incidents. She added that local authorities are facing increasing challenges balancing freedom of speech protection and addressing hate speech.

Similarly, Alderman JP Smith, Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, City of Cape Town (South Africa), outlined the challenges posed by xenophobia, including violence targeting foreigners in South Africa, fuelled by disinformation proliferating online by both domestic and foreign malign actors. He also cited increased polarisation between groups at each end of the political ideological spectrum, which is impacting policymaking and even inciting violence against the government. Equally important, he noted that global political climate significantly and detrimentally impacts local dynamics, making international cooperation and knowledge-sharing among cities indispensable. Strong Cities addresses this need, including by providing a platform for mayors and city practitioners to engage in cross-regional sharing and learning.

As in many other parts of the world during this super election year, South Africa saw the weakening of the political centre and strengthening of political fringes which promote nationalist, racist and anti-constitutional policies that incite xenophobia, harassment and violence against foreigners and religious minorities.

Alderman JP Smith, Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, City of Cape Town (South Africa)

Relevant, Inclusive and Effective City-Led Prevention

Cities have enacted various practices to address these threats. In Albania, Elbasan’s approach emphasises better understanding community needs and building partnerships to deploy a whole-of-city prevention approach. To do this, the local government established and operationalised a Local Safety Council which brings together different local government departments and agencies and civil society and community-based organisations to share information and coordinate responses. Additionally, the local government has expanded membership of the city youth council from 10 to around 500 young people across the city to ensure diverse voices contribute to its work. Participatory budgeting has further enabled the city to involve residents in decision-making processes, promoting transparency and trust.  

Understanding the problem is the first step to solve it. To do this, we have engaged various groups to understand their concerns and include them in developing and implementing action plans.

Gledian Llatja, Mayor of Elbasan (Albania)

Despite extremism prevention being within the domain of the French national government, the City of Strasbourg (France) has taken concrete steps to counter radicalisation and support victims of violence. Similarly to Elbasan, a key focus has been collecting more information about the needs of residents, while also providing extensive training for relevant local stakeholders such as psychologists, mediators and funding for community-based organisations to lead prevention in priority neighbourhoods. For instance, the local government has trained 18 mediators to address and deescalate conflict in public spaces. It also runs an equality centre aimed at promoting tolerance, diversity and gender equality. Additionally, following the December 2018 terrorist attack in the city, the local authorities developed a programme to support victims of the incident and their families. The programme is still active and now supports victims of all forms of violence and aggression.

Michael Mbano, Mayor of Songea (Tanzania), emphasised that community engagement and empowerment, particularly in the context of youth, women and marginalised groups, is a key focus for his local government. To ensure they are meaningfully included in community activities, ten percent of the council budget is allocated for youth and women empowerment and support. Additionally, the local government leads community conversations to address polarising topics and issues around protecting individuals from hate speech while balancing the freedom of speech.

In Bellevue (Washington, USA), the local government has prioritised fostering inclusion and dialogue through initiatives such as its Cross-Cultural Centre Without Walls and Welcoming Week, which celebrate diversity and encourage engagement. The Centre partners with various organisations from around the city and empowers them to host events at various venues. It also provides modest funding to local organisations to ensure all groups can participate and organise community activities. Bellevue also trains cultural ambassadors to mediate inter-community conflicts and address tensions, and it is working to empower communities to stand up against hate speech and abuse as opposed to censoring it.

One thing cities can do to address hate speech is empower communities to speak up against it and through this inoculate residents and especially youth.

Janice Zahn, Councilmember, Bellevue City Council (Washington, USA)

Cape Town’s approach includes urban planning for violence prevention, neighbourhood watch programmes and training on soft target protection. Drawing from lessons learned from Strong Cities’ October 2022 Regional Workshop in Nairobi (Kenya), Cape Town developed a framework for countering violent extremism, which Alderman Smith described as instrumental for safeguarding vulnerable communities. One of the key measures under this strategy is the protection of places of workshop. Working with mosques, synagogues, churches and temples, the city has trained staff on how to respond to a violent incident and keep people and premises safe. Another priority measure is strengthening trust between law enforcement and youth. To do this, the city has organised youth camps for vulnerable young people to become safety ambassadors within their schools, some of whom have since found employment in law enforcement. The city has also more than 50,000 neighbourhood watch members who work together with law enforcement and the private sector to ensure streets are safe for all.

Next Steps

Practices shared during the Fifth Global Summit, including this session, will be captured and integrated into the Strong Cities Online Resource Hub, which houses a library of living guides and toolkits on mayoral leadership and city-led action to prevent and respond to hate, extremism and polarisation. Strong Cities will continue to work with cities across its global membership and beyond in 2025 to help address key prevention-relevant needs, catalyse city-led prevention and response, and provide a platform for city-to-city learning.

Further Resources

Recent Strong Cities policy briefs and resources:

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].

News & EVENTS

Stay up to date with recent news, articles and event reports

News & Events
Or explore all resources
Nominated for Best Animated Short at Cannes
Watch now
Join US
Looking to become a Strong City?
Get in touch
Copyright © Institute for Strategic Dialogue (2024). The Strong Cities Network is hosted by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a company limited by guarantee, registered office address PO Box 75769, London, SW1P 9ER. ISD is registered in England with company registration number 06581421 and registered charity number 1141069. All Rights Reserved