A Guide For Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism & Polarisation

Acknowledgements

Thed Strong Cities Network Management Unit would like to thank the many local government officials that contributed to this Guide, whether by participating in interviews, discussions or surveys, or in Strong Cities’ activities since the Network’s launch in 2015. A special thanks goes to Eric Poinsot, Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Coordinator, City of Strasbourg, France, who provided critical guidance and support throughout the drafting of this Guide. This publication was made possible by generous support from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the European Union and the US Department of State. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Strong Cities Network’s membership in its entirety nor its donors, partners and supporters.

Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD)

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) worked with mayors and government partners to launch Strong Cities in 2015. Since then, ISD has expanded and supported Strong Cities membership and has delivered its programming. ISD continues to host the Management Unit and contributes its research and expertise to meet the policy and practice needs of cities and local governments around the world.

About this guide

Since its launch in 2015, the Strong Cities Network has been working closely with local government officials from across its more than 250 member cities globally to unlock the contributions that local governments can make to whole-of-society approaches to preventing hate, extremism and polarisation¹. In this time, many local government officials shared that they would benefit from a better understanding of the roles that cities can play (and the responsibilities they have) in addressing hate and extremism. This includes by leveraging and learning lessons from existing crime and violence prevention frameworks and approaches. Many also said that they believe that a prevention toolkit designed for local governments would help them operationalise these roles and fulfil these responsibilities.

This Guide is an attempt to capture these experiences and package them in a user-friendly way for cities. This includes local governments that want to enhance existing policies, programmes and practices or develop new ones.

This Guide builds on Strong Cities’ analysis to date, including its policy brief, Why Do Cities Matter? Ten Steps That Cities Can Take to Prevent and Counter Violent Extremism.

Supporting cities to prevent hate, extremism and polarisation

This Guide is designed to support cities to address issues of hate, extremism and polarisation, including that which manifest in violence. This framing is intended to capture a wider range of practices than ‘traditional’, often narrowly framed P/CVE-focused efforts. It also reflects a plurality of city-led approaches to tackling these issues, acknowledging differences in the prevailing definitions and understandings of these concepts in different contexts. 

At a basic level, this Guide focuses on enabling cities to contribute to a whole-of-society approach to addressing these challenges and catalysing more local government-led efforts to tackle the conditions and enablers of hate, extremism and polarisation. It aims to aid the development of more targeted city-led approaches that address specific issues, population groups or areas through interventions that support specific communities and individuals. It recognises that prevention is designed to mitigate these challenges but cannot be expected to eliminate them altogether.

The term prevention is used throughout this Guide specifically in relation to cities’ efforts to address the issues of hate, extremism and polarisation in a multi-disciplinary, cross-institutional and ultimately whole-of-society way.

Whom this guide is for

This Guide is written to inform the rich diversity of different local government officials, including administrative staff and practitioners. It aims to be broad and does not restrict guidance to any particular sector, geography or other context. Strong Cities recognises that cities have differing access to support, guidance and an evidence base for developing prevention, and that city governments employ different

Strong Cities uses ‘cities’ as a broad term to refer to all variations of local and sub-national units of government with which it engages, including cities, town and municipalities of all sizes, as well as states, counties and provinces. This Guide also uses ‘cities’ to refer collectively to the individuals working for relevant local government offices and the public services and agencies under its purview that can and do contribute to prevention. This includes administrative officials, technical staff or ‘frontline’ practitioners engaging directly with communities and individuals.

How this guide is intended to be used

This Guide compiles good practice, examples and learnings on key aspects of prevention, including planning and implementation at different levels and through a wide range of interventions². Not all components of this Guide will be relevant to all cities; instead, guidance is presented to inspire cities to explore different approaches and considerations in enhancing their prevention efforts.

Beyond this publication, the content of this Guide will be hosted on Strong Cities’ Resource Hub and will become a ‘living document’ where examples, practice spotlights and learnings will continue to be added and updated online to expand upon the introductory summaries of each aspect covered by the Guide.

The Guide can also be used in conjunction with other Strong Cities Resources, including: 

• Guide for Mayors and other local leaders on prevention and response.
• Guide for City-Led Response to incidents of hate and extremist-motivated violence.
• National-Local Cooperation Toolkit to facilitate the implementation of the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s good practices on strengthening National-Local Cooperation (NLC) for preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE).
• City Spotlight Library

Assumptions

As a diverse global network, Strong Cities’ membership of more than 260 cities spans more than 65 countries. This Guide is designed to support the needs of local governments interested in strengthening existing or developing new approaches to prevention across a wide variety of different locations.

Strong Cities recognises, however, that the legal, political or practical conditions for a city to contribute to these topics vary greatly from one context to the next. So, while the Guide is designed to have broad applicability, it is likely to be of greatest use to cities in countries where the following three criteria are satisfied.

1. The central government recognises, at least to some degree, the importance of pursuing a whole-of-society approach to address hate, extremism and polarisation;
2. The central government acknowledges the potential that cities have to offer in prevention and building peaceful and cohesive communities more resilient to hate, extremism and polarisation; and 
3. The legal and political space exists for local governments to contribute to a whole-of-society approach. 

Foreword

By Eric Poinsot, Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Coordinator, City of Strasbourg, France

and Mzwakhe Nqavashe, Portfolio Chairperson: Safety and Security, City of Cape Town, South Africa

Our cities of Strasbourg and Cape Town joined the Strong Cities Network because of a fundamental appreciation that our work to prevent hate, extremism and polarisation is made more effective when we are learning from our peers in cities around the world. Whether it is our domestic counterparts or our regional neighbours, or even cities much further afield, we are united by a common recognition that global and transnational challenges like these often exploit the most local issues in our own neighbourhoods. Whatever the nature of the specific threats in our own communities and despite the significant differences in context, such platforms offer a rich pool of experience, expertise and support from one city to the next. In turn, our own cities share our learnings, offer our perspectives, and build relationships in the hope that no city need face these threats alone.

The City of Strasbourg has long voiced the need for developing a dedicated resource for cities that offers a comprehensive overview of the key aspects of prevention. The need is clear: to support the myriad professional sectors and services that make up the workforce of a local government with a reference guide that provides a basic summary when facing the challenges of hate, extremism and polarisation in their community. With cities all over the world having a daily responsibility for basic service provision and invariably being asked to do more with less, it had to be a guide written not for technical experts but for everyday practitioners and officials who needed to relate tackling these issues to their ‘day job’. Whatever the context and challenges of a city, it had to build a common understanding of why cities are relevant, what they can do, and how prevention can be part of existing and everyday functions rather than a complex, separate and entirely new endeavour. 

When Strong Cities launched its East and Southern Africa Regional Hub last year, Cape Town called for a resource that could serve the needs of cities across the region equally and help cities understand the contribution they can make to issues that too often are treated as national security matters beyond the remit of a local government. It needed to be a guide that was built on the experience of others, that demonstrated core learnings and methodological approaches adopted in cities with very different resources, political conditions and governance frameworks. Local governments are often so stretched with balancing daily competing priorities and serving the objectives of different mayors and local leaders that the first question many have when they get together to talk about hate, extremism and polarisation is “what is my role?” or “why am I relevant?” 

Both our cities have witnessed, and continue to experience, different threats and challenges related to hate, extremism and polarisation. These are often complex issues but ones that reach into the heart of local communities, feed on local tensions and divisions, and require multifaceted, coordinated and proactive responses that aim to prevent. Approaches that fail to recognise this are often reductive and insufficient. 

Cities have so much to offer if we recognise that prevention and not only security are needed. Cities are closer to communities and they often understand local dynamics and vulnerabilities better than central governments. 

This is not to suggest they should work alone; prevention is more effective when there is coordination and alignment between central, local and non-governmental approaches. But if cities are to realise their potential and be able to contribute positively and sustainably, they need help first identifying how they can use what they already do and the assets they already have.

We are pleased to introduce this much-needed Guide from Strong Cities and hope that your city will find something in here that speaks to the challenges you are facing and the practical steps you need to take to prevent them and keep your community safe. 

We also hope you will feel motivated in due course to share what you learn from your own experiences and keep this community of practice thriving, supporting cities all over the world to address ever-changing needs. 

Eric Poinsot
City of Strasbourg, France

Mzwakhe Nqavashe
City of Cape Town, South Africa