Our Approach

Unlocking the potential of City-Led Action

Strong Cities supports mayors and local authorities through a variety of modalities, designed to build meaningful connections between cities, facilitate peer learning and exchanges, and to equip cities with tools they need to not only address a complex and evolving threat environment, but to build strong, socially-cohesive and resilient cities.

How we work

Convening

Strong Cities brings together mayors, local officials, youth, civil society, national governments, multilateral bodies and the private sector to share experiences, good practices and challenges. Formats vary and include national, regional or cross-regional workshops or exchanges, mayoral leadership initiatives, global summits and other online and offline formats, and include both Strong Cities and partner-organised activities.

Regional Hubs

Regional Hubs facilitate increased sharing of experiences, good practices and challenges, through workshops, briefings and webinars, and maintaining an active ‘help desk’ to provide targeted support to address individual cities’ questions, challenges and needs.

Training & Capacity-Building

Supporting cities and relevant stakeholders to improve and develop local approaches that take account of good practices internationally and which can be tailored to local contexts. This includes a Technical Support Fund offering direct assistance to Strong Cities members with identified needs that align with the Network’s strategic priorities.

Resource Hub

A living, open resource for disseminating online training tools, local policies and good practices, including profiles and spotlights of approaches across member cities, accessible through the Strong Cities website.

Monitoring & Evaluation

Strong Cities has a dedicated Monitoring & Evaluation function enabling the Management Unit to assess impact against key indicators, adjust methods and engagement accordingly, improve efficacy of the Network, and ensure we are addressing city needs and priorities.

Partnerships & Collaboration

Strong Cities prioritises partnerships and opportunities to collaborate with national governments, multilateral bodies, including the UN and regional and sub-regional entities, and relevant global, regional and country-specific city networks.

Impact

Hear what cities are saying about our impact

Cities are often on the margins of discussions about security or prevention, but first on the line of response when threats are realised. In 2015, our municipality was the target of groups intent to undermine the coexistence and stability of our municipality and country as a whole. With Strong Cities, we managed to bridge the gap between capacities and needs on the ground, and to engage more actively in preventing violent extremism, hatred and polarisation in our community.

Maksim Dimitrievski—Mayor of Kumanovo, North Macedonia

In 2022, I attended a Strong Cities conference in Nairobi. An extremely informative experience. There is much more South African municipalities can do. Following the event, I wrote to the Head of Disaster and Risk Management … to create an intervention response focused on countering extremism. I realised we needed to step up and do more and anticipate a larger role for local governments in this space.

JP Smith, Alderman, Mayoral Committee Member for Safety & Security, Cape Town—South Africa

Conferences and meetings organised by Strong Cities really prepared us in a way that we now really have prevention in mind. Upon our return from the different conferences, we organised our people more than in the past and increased awareness-raising activities.

Mayors of Kolofata, Kousseri, Méri & Mokolo—Cameroon

Our project, supported by Strong Cities, has brought together more than 200 women from different counties who are now peace ambassadors. We have also trained them to be community counsellors.

Salma Ebrahimi—Mombasa, Kenya

Saida went through some challenges that pushed us towards a preventative approach. As a result, the mayor considered the Local Prevention Networks to be a priority for youth and for schools especially. Engagement with Strong Cities has had a very positive impact on the city’s practitioners and municipal officials. To be honest, we didn’t expect this result. It has exceeded our expectations.

Focal Point—Saida Municipality, Lebanon

The South Asia Regional Hub Inaugural Event was wonderful! Being part of this workshop was a memorable experience and shared a lot of knowledge.

Khajja Ibrahim—Women’s Development Committee, Addu City, Maldives

We are appreciative of Strong Cities convening representatives of national and local authorities from Uganda to discuss these important issues. This is the first time we have been in the same room with representatives of national government ministries to exchange views on preventing extremist violence in our country.

Senior Local Government Representative—Uganda

We are at a pivotal point. Mayors and cities – large and small – must prioritize prevention and be prepared to respond to the types of attack we experienced here in Highland Park just last year. Cities can play key roles in stemming the tide of rising hate and violence, but support is needed. Strong Cities offers that support.

Nancy Rotering—Mayor of Highland Park, Illinois, USA

Our Thematic Focus

Models, tools and approaches for building Strong Cities

Strong Cities is supporting cities to develop or strengthen mandates and programmes to prevent and respond to hate, extremism and polarisation, which leverage the range of local services, interests, networks and skills that exist within cities.

National-Local Cooperation

Multi-Agency Frameworks

Young Cities

Transatlantic

City-Led Response

Explore THE NETWORK

Strong Cities

A global network of cities in different national and local contexts ensures that wherever a city is located, there will be other cities facing similar challenges and with similar capacities and needs.