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Sixth Global Summit: The Glocalisation of Prevention

Publication Date:

22/01/2026

Content Type:

Event Reports

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community resilienceDigital HarmsGlobal–local cooperationSixth Global SummitSocial CohesionToronto

— 11 minutes reading time

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

Introduction

On 9 – 11 December 2025, the Strong Cities Network held its Sixth Global Summit in Toronto (Canada), bringing together more than 30 representatives of local governments, national governments, civil society organisations, academia, the private sector and international organisations. This included nearly 60 elected and/or appointed city leaders and 110 other local government officials, together representing 100 cities from 42 countries across the world.

The Summit included a plenary session on The Glocalisation of Prevention that explored a central challenge facing the prevention field: how global prevention frameworks translate into meaningful, sustainable action at the local level and how cities and local leaders can play a more active role in shaping and implementing these agendas.

Speakers:

• Alistair Millar, President of the Fourth Freedom Forum – Moderator
• Alessia Polidoro, Regional Manager, Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF)
• Alton Grizzle, Programme Specialist in Communication and Information, UNESCO (virtual)
• Filippo Pierozzi, Programme Officer, UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies (UNODET) (virtual)
• Giacomo Negrotto, Local Governance Specialist, UN Development Programme (UNDP) (virtual)
• Paul Ash, Executive Director, Christchurch Call Foundation
• Skip Gilmour, Director of Trust and Safety Solutions, Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT)
• Steven Siqueira, Deputy Director, UN Counter-Terrorism Center, UN Office on Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT)

Key Takeaways

1. Global prevention agendas often fail to meaningfully reflect local realities, despite the increasingly localised manifestation of global threats.
2. Local governments are frequently the first to identify emerging risks, but remain under-engaged in global prevention processes.
3. Digital harms and social polarisation are outpacing existing governance and cooperation models across levels of government.
4. Effective prevention requires flexible, multi-level cooperation that recognises municipalities as partners and co-creators, not just implementers.

Key Themes 

1. Global Frameworks, Local Realities

In his opening framing, Alistair Millar, President, Fourth Freedom Forum, highlighted the growing disconnect between the global nature of contemporary threats and the hyper-local way in which they manifest. While cities and towns are grappling daily with polarisation, misinformation and online-driven harms, local governments are often the last actors engaged in the elaboration of international frameworks designed to address these challenges.

Several speakers echoed this concern, noting that while global strategies increasingly reference localisation, local leaders frequently lack awareness of these frameworks or opportunities to shape them. This disconnect risks limiting both the relevance and effectiveness of global prevention efforts, particularly where local trust, legitimacy and contextual knowledge are central to success.

2. Digital and Emerging Threats: A Multi-Level Challenge

Digital harms featured prominently throughout the session, with speakers highlighting how online spaces are increasingly shaping local social dynamics, risk environments and community trust.

Participants emphasised that while many digital threats are global in origin, which has inspired the development of several global frameworks for mitigating them, their impacts are experienced most acutely at the local level. As a result, municipalities are often the first to encounter them, including the online misinformation and harmful content, and the polarisation and division they can sow. Despite this, representatives of local governments remain under-engaged in global digital governance processes.

Building Community Resilience Through Media and Information Literacy

Alton Grizzle, Programme Specialist in Communication and Information, UNESCO, highlighted the role of cities as key platforms for strengthening media and information literacy (MIL) and social cohesion. He noted that UNESCO works through more than 50 field offices and global multi-stakeholder city networks, including the UNESCO Cities Platform, which engages approximately 1,500 cities worldwide in promoting MIL.

He emphasised that as physical and digital life increasingly converge, citizens require rights literacy across both spheres. UNESCO has supported the integration of MIL into school curricula to foster critical thinking among children, while also expanding learning into non-formal spaces such as transport hubs, commercial centres, health services, election infrastructure and mayoral networks.

He also highlighted UNESCO’s MIL and anti-racism programmes, which have reached over 23,000 young people and generated more than 10,000 public submissions on digital platform guidance. These initiatives demonstrate how global frameworks can be localised through education, youth engagement and city-led partnerships.

This approach closely aligns with the themes raised in the Global Summit’s Digital Resilience session, where participants emphasised that prevention must go beyond reactive responses to focus on strengthening community capacity, trust and digital literacy over time.

Governing Emerging Technologies Across Levels of Government

Filippo Pierozzi, Programme Officer, UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies, UNODET, spoke about the Global Digital Compact, the first global framework focused on digital technologies and online governance, underscoring that online safety is no longer a niche concern. He said that “online safety is safety” and that digital harms increasingly translate into real-world risks.

As part of UN-led efforts to facilitate the Compact’s implementation, Pierozzi highlighted ongoing work to develop practical tools, including mechanisms to measure cultural forms of online violence and digital literacy curricula. He also pointed to UNODET’s partnership with UN-Habitat to convene mayors on digital cooperation, ensuring that local governments are actively engaged in shaping global digital policy.

He pointed to the launch of the UN Digital Cooperation Portal, which maps over 2,000 digital initiatives worldwide, as a way to both support local policymakers and allow the UN system to adapt its strategies based on local action, rather than relying solely on top-down approaches.

Platform Accountability and Local Impact

Skip Gilmour, Director of Trust and Safety Solutions, Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism( GIFCT), described the organisation’s role in coordinating incident response frameworks to prevent the viral spread of online content linked to offline terrorist events. He highlighted GIFCT’s global working groups and academic network, hosted at King’s College London, as key mechanisms for knowledge-sharing and policy development.

Gilmour noted that GIFCT is seeking stronger relationships with technology companies operating at the local level, as well as with service providers and law enforcement agencies that deal with the real-world impacts of online harms. He emphasised that trusted local contacts, including in municipalities, would improve the speed and accuracy of crisis responses, particularly in fast-moving situations involving AI, algorithms and rising polarisation.

Crisis Response and Multi-Level Coordination: The Christchurch Call Perspective

Paul Ash, Executive Director, Christchurch Call Foundation, explained that the Christchurch Call, developed in response to the 15 March 2019 terrorist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, was designed as a multi-stakeholder initiative, bringing together governments, technology platforms, civil society and academics. He noted that the 2019 Christchurch Attack marked a turning point because it was live-streamed, accelerating the global spread of harmful content and demonstrating the need for coordinated crisis response frameworks.

Ash highlighted that many resilience and prevention tools already exist at the local level, particularly within municipal governments and community organisations, which are often the first to respond in the aftermath of crises. He stressed that social cohesion is central to effective crisis response and prevention, and that cities play a critical role in building trust, supporting community-based networks and mitigating the local impacts of online harms. In this sense, he emphasised that while global coordination is essential, the practical work of fostering resilience and responding to polarisation and extremism largely falls within the remit of local governments.

The Foundation currently works with 55 regional governments and numerous community partners, focusing on programmes such as Research & Access, Elevate and Catalyst. Ash also emphasised the importance of engaging men and boys – especially within online gaming communities – to address misogyny as a driver of violent extremism.

3. National–Local Cooperation in Practice

A recurring theme across the discussion was the uneven quality of national–local cooperation in translating global prevention commitments into effective city-led action. Participants described strong collaboration during periods of stability, contrasted with significant strain during crises such as protests, public disorder or rapidly escalating online threats.

Several speakers observed that local authorities often identify emerging risks earlier than national governments, particularly where changes in behaviour or community sentiment are involved. However, delays in national recognition and response can create implementation gaps in the application of global frameworks at the local level.

Steven Siqueira, Deputy Director, UN Counter-Terrorism Center, UN Office on Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), reflected that UN prevention frameworks, including the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and the UN Secretary-General’s Preventing Violent Extremism Plan of Action, were developed with limited local engagement and were largely shaped by highly political, top-down processes. He noted that more recent programmatic efforts by agencies such as UNDP and UNESCO are bringing prevention closer to the ground through community-based activities.

Siqueira highlighted examples of youth engagement initiatives in Nigeria, Somalia and Southeast Asia that feed local perspectives into international processes. He emphasised the need to move upstream toward development-led prevention, while acknowledging that resources remain limited and that stronger multi-level partnerships – including with the private sector – are essential.

These gaps can leave municipalities without timely guidance, resources or political backing, creating vacuums that are often filled by misinformation, conspiracy narratives or polarising actors. This dynamic underscored the need for more responsive, two-way communication across governance levels.

4. Localising Prevention Through Governance and Financing

Alessia Polidoro, Regional Manager, Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), reflected on the importance of aligning global prevention priorities with community-level realities. She described how GCERF’s funding approach seeks to bridge this gap by resourcing locally rooted initiatives and strengthening national–local cooperation. Her contribution underscored that flexible, long-term financing is essential for enabling municipalities and community actors to adapt to evolving threat environments. Polidoro emphasised the importance of building feedback loops so that community insights can shape how national action plans and international policies are designed and implemented. She also pointed to the value of research partnerships, including with universities, to strengthen the evidence base underpinning locally grounded prevention efforts.

Giacomo Negrotto, Local Governance Specialist, UN Development Programme (UNDP), reinforced the importance of local governance, noting that many regions are geographically and politically distant from national capitals. He described UNDP’s Local Action Team approach, which integrates governance, rule of law and peacebuilding to empower communities as active shapers of global commitments.

Negrotto highlighted that over two-thirds of the Sustainable Development Goals must be achieved at the local level, underscoring the importance of multisectoral, bottom-up approaches that link prevention with service delivery and broader development priorities. He also emphasised the need to elevate diverse local voices, particularly in the Global South.

Participants noted that rigid funding modalities and national gatekeeping often remain barriers to meaningful localisation, even where political commitment exists. Short-term funding cycles, limited municipal access to international resources and restrictive national approval processes can all constrain local innovation and responsiveness.

5. Broadening the Prevention Lens

Speakers also stressed the limitations of prevention frameworks that remain narrowly focused on terrorism. Several participants noted that many of the harms currently affecting communities – such as hate crime, misogynistic violence, online harassment and youth radicalisation – fall outside traditional counter-terrorism mandates. This can constrain funding, partnership-building and political buy-in at the local level.

Contributors highlighted that prevention systems must evolve to address a broader spectrum of threats to social cohesion and democratic participation, particularly as the age of individuals affected by online harms continues to decrease. The merging of prevention and peacebuilding approaches reflects a shift toward more holistic, development-led models.

Next Steps

The session reinforced several areas where the Strong Cities Network can play a critical role:

• Strengthening localisation of global prevention frameworks, ensuring municipal perspectives inform design and implementation.
• Facilitating peer learning among cities, particularly on emerging and ambiguous threats, where formal guidance is limited.
• Supporting multi-level cooperation, including clearer channels for information-sharing on digital and online harms.
• Advocating for broader prevention mandates, encompassing hate, harassment, polarisation and online abuse alongside terrorism-related risks.
• Position cities as prevention leaders, recognising their role as early identifiers of risk and trusted actors within communities.
• More opportunities to share their perspectives, frameworks and practices with others. In particular, cities want more opportunities to share with national governments and the United Nations (UN) and other multilateral bodies that have developed and are looking to localise the implementation of global prevention frameworks and action plans (this includes contributing to the 2026 review of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy).

The session underscored that effective prevention in today’s threat environment depends on bridging the gap between global ambition and local action. As global challenges increasingly manifest at the municipal level, cities must be recognised not only as implementers, but as essential partners in shaping prevention strategies.

For the Strong Cities Network, the discussion reinforced the value of its convening role in connecting local leaders with global initiatives, amplifying municipal voices and supporting more responsive, inclusive and locally grounded prevention efforts.

Additional Resources

Recent Strong Cities policy briefs and resources:

• City Leadership in Partnering with Local Communities for Social Cohesion: Ten Considerations for Mayors and Local Governments, Strong Cities Network, 2025
• National-Local Cooperation: Opportunities and Lessons Learned for Secondary and Tertiary Prevention, Strong Cities Network, 2025
• City Leadership in the Face of Rising Incivility and Polarisation: Ten Considerations for Mayors and Local Governments, Strong Cities Network, 2025
• Innovations in Prevention: Piloting Multi-Actor Frameworks in Small and Mid-Sized Cities in the United States, Strong Cities Network, 2025
• A Toolkit for Cities: Building a Multi-Actor Local Prevention Framework, Strong Cities Network, 2025
• A Toolkit for Manitoba Municipalities: Addressing Anti-Government Hate and Harassment, Strong Cities Network, 2025
• A Guide for Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism & Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, updated 2025
• A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism & Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, updated 2025
• A Guide for City-Led Response, Strong Cities Network, May 2024
• City Spotlights Library, Strong Cities Network

Donors & Partners

The Sixth Global Summit was co-hosted with the City of Toronto and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, and delivered with generous support from the Government of Canada, The Fourth Freedom Forum, The Toronto Foundation and Charities Aid Foundation.

Contact Information 

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

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