Title of Event:


Name of Organisation:

Date and time of the session:

Inclusive Governance in Conflict Cities - Achieving Safety and Security through Local Cooperation
LSE: Development Studies Institute (DESTIN) and Crisis States Research Centre
22 June, 4:30pm

Key Highlights

1. Estimated no of participants: 50
2. Stakeholder group representation at the event: several organisations of the United Nations family, representatives from national NGOs in Africa and Asia, academics, senior staff members of national development agencies
3. What were the expected objectives: knowledge exchange on policies aiming to reduce insecurity and increase liveability of conflict cities, comparison of individual experiences and development of conceptual framework for policy interventions
4. What did the networking event achieve: generated lively debate between policymakers and practitioners based on eight examples from Angola, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Liberia, South Africa, Afghanistan, and Mozambique; pointed to the necessity of integrated policy measures cutting across local, national, and international levels; facilitated understanding of key challenges to achieve safety and security in conflict prone urban environments

2. What were the core issues identified in your event as they relate to the theme and sub-themes of WUFIII?

• Safety and security cannot be achieved at the urban level only, but needs to be complemented by action at both the neighbourhood level and through national and international levels
• Governance needs to be inclusive and target minorities and vulnerable residents, but can only be effective if the urban and national political economy is taken into account
• Post-war reconstruction in the urban realm can potentially widen the gap between wealthy and poor residents, and solutions to bridge this widening gap are rooted firmly in political action - economic growth alone is insufficient to overcome vulnerability

3. What were the main points raised by panellists and participants in relation to these different issues? What new ideas have been generated as a result of the discussion?

• Sierra Leone: national and local elections pushed by international actors have created political stalemate in the capital city; funds for urban reconstruction extremely limited and their disposal politicised; vibrant civil society using capital city as a node for coordination, occasionally having to ward off international attempts to take over issue management
• Afghanistan: overdetermination of the capital city as the place of national reconstruction; institutional multiplicity hampering scope and the effectiveness of urban reconstruction
• South Africa: political inclusion of traditional authorities possible and effective to achieve safety in security, but this does not necessarily coincide was economic development, and rising unemployment levels our feeding back into the challenge of decreasing interpersonal violence in the urban realm
• Mozambique: post-war reconstruction process highly divisive economically and politically, international attempts to bypass the state it terms of development is harmful to the government's legitimacy. This, combined with growing inequality, could be a source of future conflict

4. What process steps have been identified in your event that could help turn ideas into operational reality?

• Conflict cities pose a particularly challenging environment for inclusive governance, but the political economy may create opportunities for local action supported by national policies and international funds.
• Effective action by local groups needs to maintain a fine balance between being perceived as non-political while at the same time engaging with the political in nature of urban reconstruction and urban in policymaking taking place in violent political and economic environments.
• Community policing, when approved by local governments and accountable to communities, is an effective tool in conflict cities.
• Local initiatives need to develop a viable resource generation model
• Initiatives to increase safety and security of urban residents need to link urban and rural areas both conceptually and in terms of impact in order to increase political and operational legitimacy and to cover issues related to labor migration
• Institutional duality or multiplicity within conflict cities needs to be dealt with through compromise and gradual change, not (externally induced) confrontation
• Urban diversity and growth are not only constraints, but also opportunities to jump across ethnic, tribal or religious trenches to facilitate local action