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A Guide For Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism & Polarisation

Last updated:

12/04/2025

Publication Date:

12/09/2023

Content Type:

Tools & Guides

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Community Engagement as Primary Prevention

Aurora (Colorado, USA) engages residents directly in ensuring the city’s security. Members of the Aurora Key Community Response Team (AKCRT) work alongside city officials during times of civil unrest to engage with communities and partner organisations. The AKCRT gathers once per month in an open, public meeting to discuss community safety and plan for upcoming events.

Cape Town (South Africa) works directly with religious communities through the Safer and Healthier Places of Worship to improve relationships among faith communities, and between them and the local government. Initially set up as a forum to discuss their concerns together and with the city, the programme also works to meet identified needs, including with training on emergency response to ensure that places of worship are prepared if an incident should occur. Overall, the programme is helping to build trust and improve relationships between the local government and different faith groups, as well as to equip the latter with the knowledge and information needed to proactively participate in prevention.

Mardan (Pakistan) has a local peace committee which serves as a city-led platform for local government and community leaders to come together and address sensitive and complex social issues, including religious and ethnic tensions and the challenges resulting from the resettlement of 1.5m internally displaced people fleeing violence in areas close to Afghanistan. Most recently, the city convened a meeting for local stakeholders to discuss opportunities and challenges to strengthen social cohesion and tackle polarisation in the city. One of the proposed measures was to allocate a separate budget for addressing youth marginalisation and enhancing their inclusion in decision-making and other civic matters.

In Zomba (Malawi) the City Council set up hyper-local committees that are responsible for swift and effective problem-solving and crisis management, including a grievance management committee that works with residents to address their concerns. These structures have also been used to support localised hate and extremism prevention by disseminating peaceful messaging and providing the local government with an early-warning function, leveraging their daily interaction with residents to monitor for and proactively address rising tensions and instances of hate speech.

Bellevue (Washington, USA) has worked with a variety of community partners to develop cross-cultural programming through the Cross-Cultural Center Without Walls. To date, the Center has provided funding to 19 local civil society organisations to host events or workshops that bring people together around shared intercultural experiences. The experiences are designed around active intercultural engagement, learning and exchange, and are delivered in different locations around Bellevue.

Education

Cities are often home to a mix of educational facilities, including public, private and religious schools. Schools are a great place to incorporate prevention programming, from building core skills like citizenship, critical consumption and media literacy to encouraging pluralism and the values that underpin social cohesion. Depending on a city’s jurisdiction over its schools and their curriculum, there may be opportunities to incorporate topics and lessons directly into a school’s programming. Alternatively, a city can work with partners to support in-school lessons or after-school programmes that can help build resilience to hate and extremism among young people and prepare them to be active and engaged citizens.

The cities consulted for this Guide felt it important to note that prevention in schools should focus on instilling positive values and attitudes, rather than framing the issues in a negative manner around risks and threats.

Novi Pazar (Serbia), a city which faced significant challenges of youth radicalisation to violent extremism, initiated prevention programmes through education. Namely, it organised a conference on the most impactful ways to include prevention aspects in school curricula and raise students’ awareness of the detrimental impact of hate, extremism and polarisation on livelihoods. This collaborative effort involved extensive consultations with civil society organisations, the national government and local institutions. The event also inspired a wider dialogue about incorporating prevention in schools and building youth resilience through early warning, dialogue and trust building with the local police and city institutions, including bodies leading prevention and youth engagement initiatives.

Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) works with schools to protect education environments. Through the Safe School App, the Municipal Secretariat of Education supports teachers and students by identifying cases of violence, self-harm and other threats and crises, including attacks on schools. It aims to provide rapid action support to management and connect schools to the Secretariat and other public bodies, simplifying coordination.

In Salt Lake City (Utah, USA), the police department’s Civilian Advocates provide an in-school programme for young people to help prevent violence, crime and gang activity by bringing training and resources to students, parents and faculty members. The Promising Youth Project is a 15-week programme delivered in collaboration with other government agencies and community groups, providing training for students aged 8-18 in life skills, social-emotional learning, conflict resolution, and resistance techniques to antisocial behaviours. It also includes more targeted support based on individual assessments and provides case management where needed, connecting at-risk students with a variety of services and opportunities through a multi-disciplinary intervention team.

Strasbourg (France) uses role-playing and simulations to broach the topic of hate and discrimination with children as young as six. Espace Egalité, serves as an education centre on discrimination, teaching visitors the 20+ characteristics that are considered protected in French law, the impacts of discrimination and the steps victims and witnesses of discrimination can take to seek justice. It also humanises the experiences of migrants and refugees by taking children through the typical journey of an asylum seeker, while also teaching children to think critically through games and puzzles that seek to raise awareness about (unconscious) biases.

Extreme Dialogue is an in-school programme that was developed by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue to help equip young people to challenge extremism. The programme includes videos featuring former extremists and survivors of extremist incidents and provide a starting point from which teachers can explore challenging issues around extremism through guided resources. The resources were designed to be used in formal and informal educational settings by teachers who have limited training and experience with the subject-matter. These kinds of school resources may be useful in settings where the city has limited opportunities to incorporate extremism-related content into the school curriculum or lack the expertise or experience to support teachers directly.

Youth engagement and empowerment

Young people are often considered passive targets or recipients of prevention programmes, rather than active participants. This approach can be stigmatising to young people and risks resulting in ineffective initiatives that overlook young peoples’ experiences, needs and grievances. Instead, cities should offer an active role to young people in prevention activities and give them a genuine, and not tokenistic, stake in identifying the challenges and proposing ways to address them. Cities should consider opportunities for inclusive and sustained youth engagement, as well as youth empowerment that supports young people in developing the skills and capabilities to advocate for their needs and act as leaders in driving positive change in their communities. This includes reducing barriers to accessibility and participation in city decision-making and policy development.

There are several approaches a city can consider to support youth engagement and empowerment, such as an active and representative youth council, regular dialogues between city leaders and youth groups and providing support to youth clubs, societies and grassroots organisations to do community-based activities. Youth engagement and empowerment can be generalised, providing broad skills and opportunities to youth throughout the city and targeted, engaging specific groups and focusing on key issues (identified through mapping) that affect youth resilience, like trust in police or other institutions. Care should be taken to accommodate people from different backgrounds and avoid excluding certain groups or reinforcing stigmatisation. Fundamentally, the issues discussed need to be raised by the youth themselves and not imposed.

Maputo (Mozambique) has a dedicated Councillor for Youth and Citizenship, who is responsible for developing and overseeing city-led youth empowerment programmes. At a regional workshop Strong Cities hosted in Johannesburg for East and Southern African cities, the Councillor shared that through his role, the city has pioneered a number of youth-focused initiatives, which include involving youth in urban design to ensure there are adequate, safe public spaces where young people can socialise and engage in healthy recreational activities. The city also runs a youth innovation programme where young people are supported financially and with training to deploy projects to promote social cohesion, youth entrepreneurship and more, which are broadcast on local TV and social media channels to then encourage more youth to get involved.

Toronto (Ontario, Canada) recognised that youth have often been missed in the city’s planning and strategy development processes in the past, Toronto set up a Youth Research Team of ten young people aged between 18 and 29 who were tasked to connect with other youth to understand the issues they feel need to be prioritised by the local government over the coming years. This effort resulted in the development of a Youth Engagement Strategy, which was “made for youth by youth” and provides a list of issue areas that young people consider as priorities (e.g., youth violence, safety and relations with law enforcement; employment; affordable housing). The Strategy also provides actions for the city to follow to address these areas while continuing to meaningfully engage with youth. are supported financially and with training to deploy projects to promote social cohesion, youth entrepreneurship and more, which are broadcast on local TV and social media channels to then encourage more youth to get involved.

To address youth radicalisation in its communities, Čair (North Macedonia) built and is operating a Youth and Community Centre. It provides a space for youth to access resources and networks, build their skills and knowledge on civic engagement and active citizenship and work on local social impact initiatives. The city runs the centre in cooperation with various local civil society and community-based organisations which organise different types of events.

Youth Councils are a good way for a city to meaningfully engage with its young residents and address youth-related issues. Youth councils are typically advisory bodies established by local governments to involve young people in the decision-making process. These councils give youth a platform to voice their opinions, contribute to policy development, and help bridge the gap between a government and its young residents. Establishing a youth council within local government creates a more inclusive, participatory approach to local government that offers several benefits to young people – including those directly participating and those living within the city – and the city more broadly. Local youth councils can:

• Build up a city’s young people. They empower young people by giving them a voice in local government and providing an opportunity to build valuable skills in leadership, cooperative problem solving and public speaking, as well as a sense of public service that can help connect them with their community.  
• Enhance a city’s ability to address youth issues. By meaningfully involving young people in decision-making, youth councils help a city understand how local issues affect young people and can lead to more effective and inclusive policies and programmes.
• Bridge generational gaps. By engaging with young people as trusted partners, youth councils can help build stronger, more productive relationships with a city’s young population. Furthermore, they build an understanding of local governance among young people that is critical to future civic participation and local leadership.

Public health, including mental health and social services

Many cities will routinely engage with public health services even if they do not have direct control over them, for example on disease prevention or infection control. For many, the COVID-19 pandemic opened up new avenues for such cooperation and communication. Working to raise awareness among health practitioners on the city’s approach to prevention as well as how to address concerns about the vulnerability of an individual or group might be a first step. In this event, the involvement and needs of the wider health sector should be considered as part of a city’s mapping process with the inclusion of health professionals in a multi-stakeholder framework. Continuing to support a healthier population should extend beyond physiological health to mental health provision and social services. While such services can also be involved in more targeted interventions, their role in primary interventions should be recognised as supporting healthy, active, connected and enabled communities. At the primary prevention level, their involvement is not prompted by any particular challenge around extremism, polarisation or hate, but because it fosters a more resilient, cohesive city in general which is in turn less vulnerable to division and hate.

Greater Manchester (United Kingdom): Through the Greater Manchester Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Accord, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority formalised a three-way collaboration between itself, the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership and the city’s voluntary and civil society sector to embed the role of voluntary organisations and community groups in the implementation of the Greater Manchester Strategy.

Through this Accord, Greater Manchester commits to ensuring voluntary organisations and community groups inform both the development and are included in the delivery of programmes to address issues ranging from mental ill-health (in partnership with the National Health Service and city-specific healthcare providers) to food poverty, addiction and homelessness, etc. The Accord also commits to ensuring civil society is represented in relevant municipal-led groups, such as the Gender-Based Violence Board and Employment and Skills Advisory Board. While the Accord is not specific to preventing hate and extremism, it offers an important example of how local governments can facilitate partnerships between key actors (in this case, health and social care and the voluntary and civil society sector) in a joint effort to address root causes of instability across the city.

Family support

Families can be among the most influential actors in prevention and many cities already offer general support to parents on a range of issues. There are also a number of risk factors around families where domestic abuse, coercive control, addiction issues, substance abuse, or exposure to criminal networks and activities, among many other things, can make an individual more vulnerable. A city can initiate discussion groups, peer support networks, or offer courses and guidance on specific needs for parents, as well as generally raise awareness around risks, how to flag concerns and seek further support in a safe environment. As far as possible, all interventions should be based on existing and established family support activities and infrastructures, not only limiting costs but helping simplify how families access support and treat prevention challenges as relevant to other aspects of their lives.

MotherSchools: Developed and launched by Women Without Borders, this programme supports mothers as the first line of defence in historically marginalised or otherwise vulnerable communities by strengthening their individual capacity, capability, emotional literacy and awareness of radical influences. It is run in close coordination with local governments in more than 15 countries around the world. Cities in Central Asia and the Western Balkans and other regions are provided training to upgrade their social services to better understand and create prevention strategies for extremism, while at the same time providing in-kind support for programme activities.

Masaka (Uganda): In Uganda, poverty, unemployment and lack of economic opportunities are among the most pressing vulnerabilities exploited by extremist groups to recruit and otherwise mobilise young people.

To address this challenge, Masaka has used its constituency development funds to support youth economic empowerment programmes, and has favoured youth-led enterprises for municipal contracts and tenders, such as for public markets, commuter taxi parks, street parking, loading and off-loading services, public toilets, public abattoirs, etc.

In terms of tertiary prevention, the city also supports young people that have been released from prison through partnering with local organisations that hire these young people to clean the city (among other activities), ensuring they have wages and helping them become more productive members of society. These young people are additionally offered vocational training and counselling through dedicated rehabilitation hubs.

Business engagement, vocational training and employment support

Many cities consulted for this Guide noted that unemployment and a lack of opportunities were key vulnerabilities for hate, extremism and polarisation in their city. A local government may decide to engage with the private sector on anything from basic awareness raising and employee support mechanisms, but equally to develop or expand vocational training support, career development schemes and other forms of support. At a primary level, this would all be pursued with the general goal of reducing vulnerabilities and increasing resilience at the general population level, rather than responding to any specific threat or challenge in a targeted way or with specific groups.

Sports

Many cities leverage sports clubs and sporting activities in support of primary prevention efforts. In many cases, sports have the potential to unite people from across different parts of the community while also demonstrating values of respect and a ‘zero tolerance’ stance towards issues like bullying, racism and other forms of discrimination. Sports campaigns and associations with clubs and athletes can help project key messages and expand the audience reached. Some cities have also found that sports can help create common ground and a shared sense of belonging across otherwise divided or siloed parts of the community. 

Culture

Similarly to sports, cultural activities and engagements are often seen as helpful vehicles for reaching across communities, widening audiences, pushing key messages and fostering a sense of belonging. A city may also develop cultural dialogues designed to help different parts of its community interact, better understand the ‘other’, air tensions, discuss sensitive topics and shed light on challenges that may otherwise be difficult to raise. 

Cultural interventions at the primary level might also encompass, for example, efforts to open new libraries that prioritise deprived or isolated groups. Again, such interventions would fall under the primary level if they were designed to open or level access across different communities because of the multiple benefits they could bring, rather than because these are communities that necessarily show specific vulnerabilities related to hate, extremism and polarisation.

Skopje (North Macedonia): Youth Cultural Centre (MKC) was founded in 1972 in Skopje under the name ‘Youth House – 25 May’. Today, MKC Skopje is a cultural institution under the jurisdiction of the City of Skopje that showcases youth cultural outputs including music, theatre, film, literature and art. It functions as a performance space, gallery, lecture/debate hall and training venue for courses and seminars. The MKC promotes and presents cultural values and provides a space for young people to exchange ideas and practice free expression. The Centre and many of its programmes are supported by City of Skopje’s budget through the Ministry of Culture; however, it is also supported by private sponsorships, donations, and various European funds.

Public space and urban planning

For many cities, planning decisions related to public, commercial, and private land and property is a key area of responsibility. Urban planning, therefore, offers a critical means by which primary prevention can be integrated and ‘mainstreamed’ within existing mechanisms and tools at cities’ disposal. By including considerations related to public safety and specifically to prevention, local governments can often make a real difference to the safety and well-being of communities, as well as to their perceptions or feelings of safety, which are equally important. 

This does not stop with public safety alone; a city could also incorporate values such as openness, accessibility, transparency, interaction and equality of opportunity into urban design and planning.

A city may intervene in this field in different ways. For example, this could be about planning initiatives developed by cities themselves, but it could equally be about adapting bylaws, enforcing regulations or reaching decisions to make such considerations a requirement of new applications and developments.

Helsinki (Finland) has asserted its identity as an inclusive city through its inclusive housing policy, Home Town Helsinki. This approach both helps people in need get housing and aims to prevent segregation and isolation by adopting mixed ownership and tenure models, making the most of public land ownership to provide a basic service and encourage a mixed housing market that promotes inclusion and breaks down barriers. More on Helsinki’s approach can also be found on the Housing 2030 website.

Rabat (Morocco) has partnered with local organisations to address gender inequality and increase the safety of public spaces for women. For example, the city has partnered with a local feminist organisation, Jossour Forum des Femmes Marocaines (Joussour Forum for Moroccan Women), as well as architects, other grassroots organisations and community-based volunteers in a multi-actor effort to build a more gender-inclusive Rabat.

As part of this project, the city and Jossour Forum arranged and took part in capacity-building workshops on gender responsive urban planning, and organised hackathons for architecture and engineering students in the city, thus including youth in its approach to building more inclusive and safe public spaces.

Through these partnerships, it has also launched targeted communications campaigns to address the intersecting nature of sexual harassment and other forms of violence, including those motivated by extremism and hate.

This initiative ultimately offers a model for participatory governance and local government-led multi-actor collaboration, where the city convenes diverse community-based actors, leveraging their comparative advantages and different types of expertise (e.g., gender, urban planning) to create a safer and more secure Rabat for all its citizens.

The State of Victoria (Australia) has a dedicated local government platform for urban design and crime prevention, featuring numerous local case studies, reference materials and information for city planners, crime prevention practitioners and the wider community.

Communications and messaging

Many cities have key public information platforms, from noticeboards, town magazines, newsletters to social media, which can be leveraged for positive messaging as well as awareness raising aimed at the general population. From developing alternative messaging campaigns, which offer a positive alternative to the negative narratives of extremist, hateful or otherwise polarising content, to responding to mis/disinformation, or simply letting people know what the city is prioritising and why, there is much that a city can do in this respect. Cities need to consider how best to communicate such messaging, both in terms of format as well as who the ‘messenger’ or face of the campaign is. In some cases, it is best for the local government, or key city leaders, to be that face themselves. In other cases, it may be trusted members of the community, a civil society organisation, or another entity that holds credibility and can resonate with the intended audience. Cities should also:

• Consult their communities in a representative way in the development and planning of a campaign. This could be part of wider cooperation with a CSO and/or local business with particular expertise, experience or insights to offer; 
• Translate key messages (where possible) to widely-spoken languages in the city to help ensure they reach all relevant communities; 
• Be considerate in the vocabulary and imagery that is used to avoid fear-mongering and/or implicitly isolating certain community groups;
• Make use of different platforms – for example, social media channels may allow for more informal engagement with the public and could be a good platform to gather inputs/insights from local communities. Be mindful of who you want to reach and what platforms those demographics (e.g., youth) use; and
• Consider communication as a means for not only prevention but also response. Public communications, from reassurance and community outreach to safety announcements and sharing vital information, are considered an essential part of planning for crisis response.

For more on crisis communications, see our Guide for City-Led Response, where this topic is discussed in detail. For a particular focus on the role of mayors and local leaders in strategic communications, see our Guide for Mayors.

Cities should consider how to leverage communication campaigns both reactively – following an incident or in response to mis/disinformation – and proactively, in the lead-up to events or moments when disinformation is likely or would be particularly damaging.

One such example is during national and local elections. Mis/disinformation hinders an electorate’s ability to make an informed decision about candidates, political parties and policy issues, while inaccuracies about the voting process can prevent them from casting their vote altogether. As a result, election mis/disinformation degrades faith in democracy, denigrates candidates’ reputations and disenfranchises voters. With these stakes in mind, an election is a critical time for cities to consider a proactive communications campaign to counteract damaging disinformation and support a free and fair election.

Social media is a valuable tool to proactively communicate about elections and reassure voters about the process. For example, the City of Hertford (North Carolina, USA) took to social media to engage local residents and examine important issues. City council members hosted a series of discussions with experts and community leaders to inform residents about the midterm elections and help reassure them about the election’s safety and validity.

Multi-lingual campaigns may be necessary to reach all residents. The City of Mesa (Arizona, USA), made a concerted effort to connect with Spanish-speaking voters in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. In addition to posting bi-lingual information on the city’s website and social media channels, the city council reached out directly to Latino citizens to explain their options for registering and voting and help them formulate a plan to vote.

For more on how cities can help prevent and respond to election-relation disruption and violence, check out Strong Cities policy brief on Preventing and Responding to Election Disruption and Violence: Ten Considerations for Cities.

Civil society partnerships

As with community engagement efforts and communications, working with civil society should be considered a means to approaching interventions as well as an effort in its own right. On the latter, recognising where there are challenges around trust, access, marginalisation or siloed communities is a key step in understanding how a city can do more to reach everybody and develop connections and understanding between communities, local services and institutions.

However, a city should also be aware of its limitations in building such linkages alone and cognisant of where city-led interventions may even harm rather than improve the situation. In such cases, developing outreach and partnerships with civil society organisations on a whole range of local issues is a good means to establish better connections and solidify partnerships that can bridge engagement gaps when a specific need arises. 

Developing funding schemes to support civil society engagement and partnerships is one way to foster these relationships.

London promotes civil society

In London (United Kingdom), the Civil Society Roots programme provides direct support to civil society organisations working to build strong communities, tackle inequality and build solidarity across different groups. Managed by the Mayor of London, in partnership with City Bridge Foundation and The National Lottery Community Fund, the programme enhances engagement between civil society and the government, and among civil society organisations by strengthening “civic infrastructure which focuses on relationship building, networking and the development of collective voice and advocacy for the organisations it supports”.

For key learnings around civil society engagement and support, see our Ten-Step Roadmap for Enhancing City-Led Support for Community-Based Programmes to Address Hate and Extremism. Cities can also support civil society organisations by putting other resources at their disposal, for example by offering technical support, expertise, training, access to information, or by sharing contacts and good practices.

New York City Supports its Communities

New York City’s Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes (OPHC) is engaging with communities across the city by supporting a range of community-based actors. It coordinates 25 city agencies involved in service delivery across the city (e.g., housing, police, education, parks, health and sanitation) to better understand threats, identify gaps in response and scale existing community safety and well-being initiatives. 

OPHC also provides capacity building for its community partners, upskilling the organisations it works with to “meet communities where they are at” and help professionalise and sustain grassroots responses to hate and polarisation.

South Africa’s Community Safety Forums (CSFs): First piloted in the Western Cape, CSFs are local multi-stakeholder collaborations that bring together municipal services, NGOs, and other partners “to provide a means for sharing information and encouraging and coordinating interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral approaches to violence and crime prevention”. Among their functions is the development of local social crime prevention capacities, to conduct community safety needs assessments to then inform programmes and such capacity building and to facilitate coordination among relevant municipal and civil-society led services.

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