Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

260
Towards safer and more secure cities
There are many
parts of the world
where crime and
violence are at
completely
unacceptable levels,
and where citizens
find their daily lives
blighted all too
frequently by
experiences of this
kind
police and the criminal justice system, has increasingly
been replaced by an approach that recognizes the
necessity for a broad-based response. There is considerable
scope for further developing this approach.
• Nonetheless, it is important that the police and the
criminal justice system are ‘fit for purpose’ in the
modern world, and are seen as key contributors to the
fight against crime and violence. Improvements in these
‘traditional’ areas should be seen as being complementary
to the new approaches being developed in
‘non-traditional’ fields, and appropriate linkages should
be developed between all of these activities.
• The main ‘non-traditional’ fields where the
development of fresh policy responses has taken place
comprise the following:
– the idea that urban safety and security can be
enhanced through effective urban planning, design
and governance;
– the development of community-based approaches
to enhancing urban safety and security;
– developing ways of reducing the key risk factors by
focusing on groups most vulnerable to crime,
especially young people and women; and
– strengthening social capital through initiatives that
look to develop the ability of individuals and
communities themselves to respond to problems of
crime and violence, provide economic, social,
cultural and sporting opportunities, and improve
the environment in ways that assist these
processes.
• Less attention has, as yet, been paid to applying the idea
of the non-violent resolution of conflicts. However,
there is scope for the further exploration of this idea.
• The combination of several of these approaches into a
systematic programme, driven by a broad strategy and
based upon a careful understanding of the local context,
seems more likely to be successful than the ad hoc
application of individual initiatives.
• The preferred mechanism to support this approach is
usually the partnership mechanism; but to be fully
effective, partnerships need to address a series of
questions about their operation, and partners need to
buy fully into ‘the spirit of partnership’.
• The transfer of ideas from elsewhere can be very
valuable; but it needs to be thought about carefully in
the particular circumstances in which the ideas will be
applied. It cannot be assumed that ideas that have
worked in one part of the world will necessarily work
successfully elsewhere. There are no one-size-fits-all
solutions, and there is no substitute for a careful study
of the particular situation in order to determine the
most appropriate course of action.
• A greater level of commitment to evaluation as a
process that can contribute to partnerships working at
several points in time and on several levels is still
required, and there needs to be more open reporting of
evaluation results, including in areas where problems
have been experienced. The work of partnerships
should be seen as a learning process, to which both the
results of evaluative work and the operational experiences
of people directly involved in the process of
implementation can make a considerable contribution.
• The best institutional structures for implementing
programmes are likely to be those that succeed in
getting the key players involved in delivery in ways that
commit them to the programme, as well as ways that
explore how the mainstream work of their own
agencies can contribute to the overall effectiveness of
the programme’s initiatives. Local authorities will often
be the most appropriate leaders of such structures.
• Local communities need to be as fully involved as possible
in these processes, not only in terms of
consultation, but also as generators and implementers
of projects.
• Capacity-building is a fundamental part of work at the
local level to tackle crime and violence. The approach
adopted to capacity-building activities needs to be as
broadly based as possible and should include the idea of
capacity-building for professional groups, partnership
members and local community members.
• International support has a key role to play in action
against crime and violence in the cities of the developing
world, as well as continuing to develop cooperative
measures in tackling the international dimensions of
crime. This can also include targeted financial support
for particular initiatives, help with capacity-building,
availability of appropriate expertise through
secondment, and assistance with various types of
mentoring. In addition, norms, guidelines, and reporting
requirements could be developed to assist and
facilitate the promotion of such interventions.
• The UN-Habitat Safer Cities Programme needs to
engage more cities than it has done to date and, where
possible, to help speed up the process in cities that
have proved to be slow in getting to grips with the
problems. There are several things that might help in
this context; but one important issue is resource availability
both for the programme as a whole and for
projects in individual cities. Further international
support could be of considerable value in this context as
well.
There can be no doubt that this represents a very challenging
agenda. There are many parts of the world where crime
and violence are at completely unacceptable levels, and
where citizens find their daily lives blighted all too
frequently by experiences of this kind. It is also clear that
many cities are being held back in their development by the
adverse consequences of crime and violence, and the reputation
that these bring with them, which, in turn, affects their
ability as cities to invest in improving the quality of life of
their citizens. In all of these areas, the challenge is to
improve the situation as quickly and as effectively as possible
so that freedom from crime and violence becomes the realistic
expectation of citizens. In particular, this agenda
represents a huge challenge to those cities that can expect
large-scale growth in the coming decades if that growth is
not to be associated with crime and violence on a scale with