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ESA Regional Hub: Scaling City-Led Action to Prevent and Respond to Hate, Extremism and Polarisation in East and Southern Africa

Publication Date:

20/06/2024

Content Type:

Event Reports

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ArushaCity-Led ActionESA Regional HubNational-Local CooperationSocial CohesionSTRIVE Citiesurban planning

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Event Details

Description: A regional workshop bringing over 30 cities together to share practical examples of and lessons learned with mayoral leadership and city-led action to prevent hate, extremism and polarisation across East and Southern Africa (ESA).

Where & When: 8-9 May 2024, Arusha (Tanzania)

Cities Represented

• Botswana: City of Francistown
• Burundi: Mukaza Commune
• Democratic Republic of the Congo: City of Bukavu
• Kenya: County Governments of Busia, Mombasa, Nakuru, Trans Nzoia, Wajir and West Pokot, Elgeyo Marakwet
• Malawi: City of Blantyre, City of Zomba
• Mozambique: City ofMaputo
• Somalia: City ofCadaado
• South Africa: eThekwini (Durban) Municipality
• Tanzania: Arusha City, Kakonko District,Mwanza City,Songea Municipality, Tanga City, Mwanza City, Tunduru District, Zanzibar Municipality
• Uganda: Entebbe Municipality,Kalungu District,Kasese District,Kyengera Town, Masaka City, Nansana Division, Nansana Municipality, Nebbi Municipality, Koboko Municipality

Partners Represented

Mayoral / Local Government Associations:

• Alliance of Mayors in Community Action and Local Development (AMICALL; Uganda)
• Association of Local Authorities in Tanzania
• Council of Governors (Kenya)
• South African Local Government Association
• Ugandan Local Government Association
• Urban Authorities Association of UgandaZanzibar Association of Local Government Authorities

Regional and International Partners:                        

• CEFA
• East African Community Legislative Assembly
• EU Delegation to Kenya & EU Delegation to Tanzania
• ICLEI Africa
• Impact Pathways
• Institute for Security Studies
• International Organisation for Migration
• United Nations Development Programme & UN-Habitat
• US Embassy in Tanzania
• WeWorld

Local Partners:

• Allied Muslim Youth Network Uganda
• East Africa Youth Network
• Lonamac CBO
• Swahilipot Hub Foundation
• Uganda Youth Senate

Key Takeaways

For Mayors & Cities

• Mayors and other city leaders can help stem the rising tide of hate, extremism and polarisation through using inclusive language, providing regular opportunities for communities to engage directly with them, and personally leading inter-community reconciliation and other peace-keeping efforts, thus demonstrating a commitment – in words and action – to serving all residents, regardless of ethnic, political, religious and other backgrounds.
• Local governments should engage communities for more than just understanding their needs: communities and youth should be consulted throughout the development of policies and programmes, giving them the opportunity to review draft policies before implementation and partnered with to strengthen public service delivery and community-based early warning capacities.
• Youth should be more consistently engaged as partners in prevention and public service delivery.
• Local governments should consider how their existing mandates, such as urban planning and design, can be delivered with the (added) intention to strengthen social cohesion. Participatory planning – where communities are involved in urban design – can help cities address infrastructural and other obstacles impeding equitable public service delivery and integration.
• To help ensure remote communities are not neglected in public service delivery, local governments should consider partnering with neighbouring cities to co-create ‘metropolitan plans’ (e.g., where city-specific plans are combined to identify and fill any gaps in governance and service provision) that give them joint responsibility for serving remote areas (e.g., between cross-border cities).

For National Governments

• National governments should engage with all levels of local government, going beyond the current, primary focus on county / provincial governments. Towns and municipalities may be able to offer a more localised perspective of the hate and extremist threat landscape and – like county and provincial governments – can support with implementing relevant national frameworks.
• National governments should include city officials in exchanges on prevention and counter-terrorism with other countries (e.g., in exchanges between National Counter Terrorism Centres).

For Partners & Donors

• Local governments need to be at the table in all discussions related to hate and extremism prevention (and community safety more broadly), whether by regional economic blocs like the East African Community or capacity-building projects led by development partners like UNDP.
• Regional donors and partners should create more opportunities for exchanging resources and lessons learned with their efforts to prevent hate and extremism across the region, ensuring local governments and other local actors are included in such exchanges.
• Local governments across the region – but particularly border municipalities – require support with understanding and monitoring the demographic composition of their cities, an urgent need in the context of mass migration and rapid urbanisation. Officials from border towns shared that they feel unable to adequately serve all their residents as they are unaware how many refugees they host, for example. Donors should consider supporting the development of a framework to support under-resourced municipalities with mapping local communities, which could be piloted and refined in a selection of border municipalities (e.g., those in Strong Cities’ ESA Border Municipalities Working Group).

For Strong Cities

• Building on Strong Cities’ growing Resource Hub, the ESA Regional Hub should consider providing practice-specific (rather than just city-specific) spotlights at its activities,.
• The ESA Regional Hub should host a virtual convening dedicated to policy exchange and review, convening cities every six months to share and solicit feedback on prevention-related policies.
• Future Strong Cities activities should provide the same platform for youth perspectives that this workshop did.
• The ESA Regional Hub should engage more DRC, Mozambican and Somali cities, with participants noting they would benefit from the support and peer-learning opportunities Strong Cities can offer.

Next Steps

The workshop concluded with commitments by participants to implement and share learnings, which the ESA Regional Hub – along with relevant partners – will assist, where possible, through its Technical Support Fund and continued peer learning opportunities. Examples of such commitments include:

• City-City Partnerships: among the city partnerships that were initiated include eThekwini and Maputo (Mozambique) to address anti-Mozambican sentiment in eThekwini, which hosts a significant Mozambican diaspora; and Koboko and Musina (South Africa) to strengthen migrant and refugee integration in Musina;
• Multi-Stakeholder Engagements: Mukaza Commune (Burundi), Kasese District (Uganda), Busia County and others committed to hosting multi-actor dialogues in their cities to sensitise community-based actors and various city departments on hate and extremism prevention and to strengthen community participation in policy planning;
• Youth Engagement and Inclusion: Participants committed to more consistently and proactively engaging youth on all aspects of local governance and prevention.
• Advocacy and Awareness-Raising: The ESA Regional Hub will work with local government associations and other city-focused initiatives to continue advocating for the role of mayors and the local governments they lead in preventing hate and extremism. The Hub will also work with local government associations to ensure city practices are shared across their networks.

Additional Resources

• ESA City Spotlights: eThekwini Municipality (South Africa), 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
• Addressing the Overlooked Role of African Cities in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, Strong Cities Network, July 2022

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