Inclusive violence and crime prevention (VCP)

Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention for Safe Public Spaces Programme (VCP)

Overview

People’s mobility and quality of life and their participation in public life and in sustainable development processes greatly depend on the safety of public spaces. South Africa’s safety issues are one of the greatest obstacles to the country’s development. Against this backdrop, the governments of South Africa and Germany are jointly implementing the VCP Programme which enables and promotes collaborative safety approaches between governmental and non-governmental stakeholders at national, provincial and municipal level. A particular focus is placed on inclusive governance of safety at local level.

Background

A lack of access to public services, a high rate of unemployment and a lack of prospects, particularly for young people, are factors conducive to violence in South Africa. As a result South Africa is still among the top ranks of international statistics on violence and crime, and a general lack of perceived and actual safety is commonly regarded as having a profound impact on the quality of life and opportunities for citizens to participate in public life and developmental processes. The problem is particularly pronounced in South Africa’s urban areas where the combination of factors such as extreme inequality, low levels of education, and high levels of heterogeneity in densely populated informal settlements are all associated with higher levels of crime and violence. Despite this, there is insufficient priority given at a national policy as well as municipal level to responding to and preventing violence and crime.

Objectives

  • Objective for the first phase of the programme 2012 – mid 2015: A community of practitioners is enabled to develop and implement their services and activities to increase safety in public spaces under active participation of young people.
  • Objective for the second phase of the programme mid 2015 – mid 2018: Conditions for building safer communities with a specific focus on violence and crime prevention are improved at local level.

Activities

  • The programme is helping to establish and strengthen platforms for knowledge exchange, peer-to-peer learning and collaboration on violence prevention and community safety. The programme supports networking amongst practitioners across different sectors as well as the different spheres of government.
  • The programme supports opportunities for training and professional development for students and practitioners in order to capacitate role-players from different professional fields, such as social workers, architects and planners, health professionals, and local government officials to have a sound understanding of approaches to violence and crime prevention.
  • The programme provides technical support to strengthen prevention interventions at local level, with a focus on helping local government to become a more active driver in making communities safer. To this end, the VCP programme assists selected pilot municipalities to introduce a so-called “safety lens” into their municipal planning and implementation processes.
  • The programme supports initiatives that unlock the positive potential of young people to contribute to making communities safer. Selected initiatives are supported that give young people a voice, provide them with alternatives to violence and crime, and strengthen their resilience. 

Effects

Through VCP’s collaboration with key government partners significant progress has been made in elevating the urban safety agenda in South Africa. For example, this topic has been embedded within South Africa’s new national urban policy, the Integrated Urban Development Framework, and a peer-to-peer learning platform established by the South African Cities Network actively promotes knowledge exchange between community safety managers from South Africa’s largest cities, and national government institutions. To demonstrate how community safety aspects can be mainstreamed in relevant government-wide programmes, VCP and partners have managed to integrate violence- and crime-prevention measures in the national government’s Community Work Programme (CWP). A joint project with the programme’s pilot municipalities is furthermore focusing on building skills within municipalities for community safety planning as part of Integrated Development Planning processes, linked to strengthening the functionality of Community Safety Forums.

Conclusions

The projects as well as several pilot youth initiatives of the programme have enabled thousands of young people to play an active role in the neighborhood violence prevention work.

Further Information

VCP on GIZ worldwide
www.giz.de/en/worldwide/17705.html

SaferSpaces – Onlineportal for practitioners of Violence and Crime Prevention in South Africa
www.saferspaces.org.za

Published: 18/08/2016

Contact

Terence Smith

Programme Manager "Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention" (VCP)
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

P.O.Box 13732 333 Grosvenor Street,
Hatfield Gardens Block E Hatfield 0028,
Pretoria/South Africa

terence.smith(at)giz.de

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Categories: Integrated urban development Public space Participation and urban planning The social city
Regions: Africa South Africa

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