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Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative: City Leadership in Maintaining Social Cohesion Amid Global Crises Learning from ‘The Columbus Way’ and Other City-Led Approaches in Europe and North America

Publication Date:

23/10/2024

Content Type:

Event Reports

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antisemitismClimate ChangeColumbusGlobal CrisesMigrationSocial CohesionTransatlantic Initiative

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Event Details

Description: On 17 – 19 September 2024, the Strong Cities Network brought together more than 75 mayors and local city officials from North America and Europe to discuss challenges and identify good practices for enhancing city-led efforts to maintain social cohesion in the face of global crises – from climate change to migration to international and regional conflicts to rising antisemitism, anti-Muslim and other forms of hate. The Transatlantic Dialogue workshop was organised in cooperation with the City of Columbus, The Ohio State University’s John Glenn College of Public Affairs, other Columbus-based partners, as well as the U.S. Department of State.  

Where & When: 17-19 September 2024, Columbus, Ohio, United States

Cities Represented

• Germany: Berlin 
• Hungary: Szombathely  
• Portugal: Braga 
• Romania: Bacau 
• Slovakia: Nitra and Žilina 
• Ukraine: Kupiansk, Lviv and Mykolaiv 
• United Kingdom: Manchester and Portsmouth 
• United States: Albuquerque (New Mexico), Athens (Ohio), Beachwood (Ohio), Bexley (Ohio), Boise (Idaho), Broadview (Illinois), Canal Winchester (Ohio), Columbus (Ohio), Forest Park (Illinois), Highland Park (Illinois), Kinston (North Carolina), Maple Heights (Ohio), New Albany (Ohio), Orange Village (Ohio), Parma (Ohio), Reynoldsburg (Ohio), Seattle (Washington), Shaker Heights (Ohio), Somerset (Ohio), Upper Arlington (Ohio), Village of Somerset (Ohio) and Whitehall (Ohio)  

Organisations Represented

• Columbus Foundation
• Columbus Partnership
• Eurotec S.A., Thessaloniki, Greece
• Department of State, Bureau of Counterterrorism
• Department of State, Office of the Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy
• Foundation for a Path Forward
• JewishColumbus
• Jewish Federation of Cleveland
• Ohio Mayors Alliance
• One World Strong Foundation
• Our Helpers
• Ukrainian Cultural Association of Ohio  
• Welcoming City 

Key Takeaways

For Mayors & Cities

• Adopt a Whole-of-Society Approach: Develop formal partnership between local government and businesses, community-based organisations and academic institutions to co-design and implement city-wide strategies for addressing hate, extremism and polarisation. This could involve creating a city-led coalition to advance initiatives such as economic development and public safety. These partnerships should ensure each sector contributes to the collective resilience effort. The Columbus Way is a whole-of-society approach dissected in detail in this event summary.  
• Strengthen Social Cohesion by Fostering Inclusion: Establish new or expand existing programmes aimed at integrating migrants, refugees and other new arrivals. City governments should implement policies that promote equal access to public services such as healthcare, education and housing for all residents, especially for vulnerable groups. Policies should be designed in consultation with these communities, ensuring their specific needs are addressed. For instance, cities can establish diversity and inclusion task forces to review existing policies and suggest inclusive reforms and by offering cultural competency training for city staff. To ensure all residents have equal access to information and services, cities should also offer multilingual communication channels and services. This includes making important city information (e.g., public health, education services, and emergency alerts) available in the primary languages spoken by migrants and refugees. It’s also important to provide interpretation services in key government offices and healthcare settings​Finally, cities should ensure the inclusion of diverse groups in decision-making bodies to enhance representation and integration. 
• Improve Crisis Communication with Clear Proactive Messaging: Cities need to have well-coordinated, transparent communication strategies that are both proactive and sensitive to the needs of all community members. As a priority, cities should have a pre-prepared crisis communication plan that outlines specific protocols for different types of emergencies including protests linked to global crises, hate incidents, natural disasters or terrorist attacks. The plan should include key messages, communication channels, roles and responsibilities, and guidelines for interacting with the media and public. They should also proactively engage community leaders, religious figures, and community-based organisations representatives as trusted intermediaries to help disseminate messages and de-escalate tensions. These local leaders often have direct influence over their communities and can help clarify the city’s response during protests or hate incidents. 
• Develop Trauma-Informed Care Initiatives for Vulnerable Communities: Cities should ensure trauma response systems are in place to provide long-term psychological and community support for victims of hate or violence. They should partner with healthcare providers, schools and community-based organisations to offer mental health counselling and trauma-informed care. These initiatives should focus on healing and rebuilding trust in communities affected by violence. 
• Launch Digital Literacy Programmes to Address Online Harms: With the growing threat of online harms, including mis-/disinformation, hate speech, and extremist content, cities should prioritise digital literacy initiatives to build resilience within their communities. Schools are a key starting point for fostering digital literacy among younger generations where media literacy is included in the school curriculum to teach students how to critically evaluate online content, identify mis-/disinformation, and understand the risks associated with hate speech and radicalisation online. Cities should also offer digital safety classes for parents and guardians, teaching them how to set up parental controls, monitor online activity, and talk to their children about the dangers of online radicalisation and cyberbullying. Finally, there should offer free digital literacy workshops for adults, particularly targeting vulnerable populations such as seniors, recent migrants, and low-income residents who may be less familiar with navigating the digital world. 
• Manage Protests through De-escalation and Dialogue: Cities need clear strategies for managing protests that prioritise de-escalation, respect for public safety, and the right to peaceful assembly. This can be done by establishing a dedicated protest management unit, such as the Dialogue Teams seen in cities such as Columbus, that focuses on maintaining communication between protest organisers and law enforcement. Law enforcement officers responsible for managing protests should also be regularly trained in de-escalation techniques and work with protest organisers to designate safe areas where protests can take place without jeopardising public safety. 

For National Governments

• Facilitate National-Local Crisis Management Training: Organise crisis management training for city officials, focusing on hate incident response, protest management and strategic communication during crises. This could include simulations, good practices for de-escalation and intercity and national-local collaboration. 
• Provide Dedicated Support to Cities for Online Harm Prevention: Allocate specific funding for cities to tackle the offline impacts of online hate speech and mis-/disinformation and their impact on social cohesion in their communities. Cities should use this funding for public awareness campaigns, establishing digital literacy programmes and creating reporting centres for on- and offline hate. 

For Strong Cities

• Expand City-City Peer Learning Programmes: Strong Cities should continue to organise its Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative peer-learning workshops and exchange programmes that focus on specific challenges faced by cities. Strong Cities should look to find opportunities for more cities in the Ukraine and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe to benefit from the initiative. To ensure that cities effectively apply the insights gained from peer-learning sessions, workshops and exchanges, Strong Cities should establish a robust follow-up mechanism to help track how cities are implementing the knowledge, tools, and good practices shared, offering ongoing support and evaluation. 
• Develop a Comprehensive Digital Resilience Toolkit for Cities: Strong Cities should develop a toolkit that includes resources for addressing online harms like hate speech and misinformation. The resource should provide elected local leaders and local governments with guidance on setting up hate reporting centres, launching public education campaigns and providing digital literacy programmes that can be adapted to different local contexts 

Next Steps

Key findings from this workshop will inform upcoming Transatlantic Dialogue events as well as the Strong Cities Fifth Global Summit, being held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 3 – 5 December 2024. Practices shared during the workshop and captured in this event report will also be 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. In addition, to build on the Resource Hub’s growing City Spotlights Library, Strong Cities will partner with city officials from the workshop to create spotlights capturing their local governments’ inspiring and innovative prevention efforts. 

Strong Cities will continue to facilitate this Transatlantic Dialogue between North American and European mayors and city officials next year. The next workshop will take place in Greater Manchester, United Kingdom, in February 2025.

Additional Resources

• Global Crises, Local Impacts: Key Findings & Recommendations to Date, Strong Cities Network, September 2024 
• Impact: Catalysing City-Led Prevention, Strong Cities Network, June 2024 
• Global Crises, Local Impacts, including latest findings and recommendations, April 2024 
• 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 
• Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative: Ten Key Findings in 2023, Strong Cities Network, March 2024 
• Navigating Local Impacts of Global Crises: Ten Considerations for Mayors and Cities – Lessons Learned from the Israel – Gaza Crisis, Strong Cities Network, December 2023 
• 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 

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