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Start Date : 12 Jun 06 |
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End Date : 16 Jun 06 |
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Background
The Safer Cities Programme was launched in 1996 at the request of African Mayors who wanted to address urban insecurity and violence by developing a prevention  strategy at city level. The Programme supports the implementation of the Habitat Agenda, which acknowledges the responsibility of local authorities in crime prevention.
Since 1997, several Safer Cities projects have been established in African Cities, amongst others: Johannesburg and Durban (South Africa), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Antananarivo (Madagascar), Yaoundé and Douala (Cameroon), Bamako (Mali) and Nairobi (Kenya).
Canada-Africa Study Exchange Programme
As a pre-cursor to the Third Session of the World Urban Forum, a study exchange of African to Canadian cities took place from 12-16 June 2006. Structured as a study exchange/city to  city cooperation programme, its aim was to support greater understanding among cities that are beneficiaries of UN-HABITAT's technical support on crime prevention, through cooperation around crime prevention and urban safety issues. Building of networks and cooperation (North-South and South-South) was a key component of the exchange that recognized that city to city links with Canadian cities would strengthen the North-South aspect of cooperation and contribute to development of a global network on safer cities. | Participating African cities: | Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Durban, and Abidjan. | Participating Canadian cities:
| Toronto, Kitchener - Waterloo, Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver/Province of British Columbia. |
Activities and Outputs of Canada-Africa Study Exchange
The study exchange exposed the participating cities to: - Local approaches to crime prevention: the role of local governments and local partnerships;
- Safer urban design and management of public spaces;
- Social crime prevention interventions: actions aimed at groups at risk;
- New forms of policing, justice and conflict resolution;
- Community participation and empowerment.
Following the study exchange, potential areas of technical cooperation are proposed as follows: - Practical tools for action
- Partnership building
- Capacity building through training
- Policy/strategy formulation
- Institutionalization
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Briefing on Canada and Safer Cities