South Asia Regional Workshop: City-Led Prevention and Response

Publication Date:

12/02/2025

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This report provides a summary of discussions during the event and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Strong Cities Network Management Unit, Strong Cities members, event sponsors or participants.

Event Details

Description: The Strong Cities Network’s South Asia Regional Hub held its third Regional Workshop in Colombo (Sri Lanka). Co-hosted by the Colombo Municipal Council, the workshop gathered more than 45 mayors, city officials, policymakers and practitioners from Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to discuss the threats to public safety and social harmony stemming from environmental challenges, migration and conflict, as well as identify good practices for cities to strengthen community resilience.

Where & When: 22 – 23 January 2025, Colombo (Sri Lanka)

Cities Represented

Bangladesh: Dhamrai, Narayanganj and Savar
India: Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Shimla and Thrissur
Maldives: Addu City, Fuvahmulah, Maafaru, Noonu Atoll and Thinadhoo
Pakistan: Balochistan Province, Larkana, Mardan, Nowshera, Peshawar, Sindh Province and Turbat
Sri Lanka: Battaramulla, Colombo, Kandy and Western Province

Partners Represented

International and Non-Governmental Organisations

All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama
Federation of Sri Lankan Local Government Authorities
Foundation for a Path Forward (Canada)
GIZ (Sri Lanka)
Mayoral Alliance (Bangladesh)
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation

Diplomatic Missions

US Embassy in Sri Lanka
British High Commission Colombo

Key Takeaways

For Mayors & Cities

Strengthen City-Level Crisis Prevention and Response: Cities should enhance their preparedness for environmental challenges, migration pressures and social unrest by implementing early-warning systems, investing in sustainable infrastructure and fostering partnerships with civil society from across all communities in their cities.
Leverage Existing Frameworks and Public Services for Prevention: Cities should prioritise using existing structures, services and programmes for prevention rather than creating new ones that may strain limited municipal resources. Aligning prevention strategies with ongoing social services, education and public safety initiatives can maximise impact and efficiency.
Promote Social Cohesion and Inclusive Governance: City leaders should prioritise policies that foster inclusivity and city-connectedness. This can include establishing local mediation programmes that resolve community tensions, promoting cultural exchange initiatives and integrating marginalised groups into governance structures. Efforts like that can help mitigate inter-communal and other tensions and build stronger communities.
Encourage Community Participation in Public Safety: Cities should consider developing multistakeholder community-action teams, neighbourhood watch groups and other local safety initiatives to enhance collaboration and trust between residents and authorities. These efforts can help prevent crime, respond to localised security concerns and strengthen social bonds.
Ensure Mayors and other Local Leaders Represent and Advocate for All Residents: City leaders should consistently speak out against all forms of hate and violence, ensuring they do not approach incidents through religious, sectarian or political lenses. Their role should be to foster unity, promote inclusivity and uphold the rights and safety of all residents.
Engage and Empower Youth in Governance: Cities should create structured opportunities for meaningful youth participation in decision-making, such as youth councils, leadership development initiatives and skills-building programmes. Encouraging youth-driven community projects can help strengthen resilience and foster civic responsibility, making young people less susceptible to violent extremist narratives.
Address Hate and Threats to Information Integrity Online and Offline: Local governments should prioritise efforts to counter misinformation and hate speech, including through city-wide digital literacy campaigns, partnerships with media organisations, engagement with social media platforms to monitor and address harmful narratives and providing support to those targeted by online hate.
Empower Women to Become Leaders in City-Led Prevention: Cities should recognise and support the unique roles of women in preventing hate, addressing community tensions and tackling gender-based violence. This includes leadership training for women, quotas for political representation and ensuring safe public spaces. Women leaders play a vital role in fostering trust, strengthening social cohesion and driving inclusive governance strategies that address the needs of all residents.
Adopt Sustainable Urban Planning Strategies: Local authorities should integrate climate adaptation measures into urban planning, ensuring infrastructure resilience and fair land use. Participatory planning processes that involve local communities in decision-making can enhance sustainability and social cohesion.

For National Governments

Enhance Decentralisation and Local Resource Allocation: National governments should grant municipalities greater authority and financial autonomy to implement local crisis response and development initiatives effectively. Providing direct funding for city-led programmes can accelerate progress in addressing urban challenges, including those that threaten social cohesion.
Strengthen Digital Resilience and Regulation of Online Spaces: National authorities should collaborate with technology companies to regulate harmful online content and work with local governments and civil society organisations to promote fact-checking mechanisms and integrate digital literacy into education systems to build long-term resilience against false information: this must be done in a manner that respects free speech and other human rights.

For Strong Cities

Expand Regional and Cross-Regional Collaboration: Strong Cities should facilitate greater city-to-city learning exchanges, particularly between South Asian and North American cities, to share experiences in preventing hate, violent extremism and social polarisation.
Enhance Knowledge Sharing and Digital Tools: The Network should expand its digital resources, including case studies, toolkits and crisis response frameworks, to support city leaders in adapting good practices and scaling local initiatives.
Build Institutional Capacity: Strong Cities should advocate for sustained national-local cooperation to empower municipalities, particularly through technical assistance, pilot initiatives and city-led innovation grants that address pressing urban challenges.
Engage More Cities Within Each Country: Strong Cities should work through national and local government associations to engage a broader range of municipalities, ensuring more cities can benefit from shared knowledge and resources.
Host National-Local Cooperation Dialogues: Strong Cities should facilitate national-local cooperation dialogues in each country to strengthen collaboration among national and local governments, which will help drive sustainable policy development aligned with local needs and support the delivery of evidence-based local action.

Next Steps

The insights and strategies discussed during the Regional Workshop will inform and shape the strategic approach of the Strong Cities South Asia Regional Hub in 2025, guiding the allocation of technical support funds, refining key subject matter areas of support and expanding initiatives such as the Women’s Leadership Caucus.
The Women’s Leadership Caucus will continue to build on this initial regional discussion by fostering training opportunities and advocacy efforts to strengthen the representation and participation of women in local governance.
Strong Cities will explore opportunities to facilitate national-local cooperation dialogues in each country to enhance policy coherence, information sharing and trust building between national and local stakeholders.
The Network will also seek to work more closely with local government associations in each country, ensuring that more cities are able to benefit from and contribute to Strong Cities initiatives and strengthening city-led prevention efforts across the region.
The Regional Hub will explore opportunities to support interested local governments with the development of urban planning approaches that promote social cohesion and city-focused digital literacy programmes aimed at countering hate speech and protecting information integrity.
Key practices shared at the workshop will be collected and integrated into tools and guides housed in the Strong Cities Resource Hub, serving as a living library of good practices, guides and toolkits for city leaders.
Participating cities will be engaged in developing City Spotlights, capturing and documenting innovative prevention efforts to serve as learning models for other municipalities worldwide.
Strong Cities will seek to facilitate cross-regional exchanges between South Asian and North American cities, particularly in locations with significant South Asian diaspora communities and city leaders of South Asian heritage, to share approaches on preventing hate, fostering inclusion and strengthening community resilience.

Additional Resources