World Bank and CJCP Seminar on Violence in the City:
Understanding and Supporting Community Responses to Urban Violence.
On the 4th May 2011, the CJCP co-hosted a seminar with the World Bank, at the Reserve Bank in Pretoria on the subject of both urban, and youth violence.

The seminar served two purposes. The first was to launch the report Violence in the City: Understanding and Supporting Community Responses to Urban Violence. This is the first global study of urban violence conducted by the World Bank, and incorporates case studies from urban communities in Brazil (Fortaleza), Haiti (Port-au-Prince), Kenya (Nairobi), South Africa (Johannesburg) and Timor-Leste (Dili). The research for the South African case study was conducted in 2009 by the CJCP.

For millions of people around the world, violence, or the fear of violence, is a daily reality. Much of this violence concentrates in urban centers in the developing world. Cities are now home to half the world's population and expected to absorb almost all new population growth over the next 25 years. In many cases, the scale of urban violence can eclipse those of open warfare; some of the world's highest homicide rates occur in countries that have not undergone a war, but that have serious epidemics of violence in urban areas. This study emerged out of a growing recognition that urban communities themselves are an integral part of understanding the causes and impacts of urban violence and of generating sustainable violence prevention initiatives.

The study used a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to understand how urban residents experience and cope with high levels of violence every day, and to develop strategic orientations for how to better support existing initiatives. The study found a variety of coping mechanisms, most of which were individual-level strategies to avoid victimization such as staying at home more, changing routes to school or work, or simply "doing nothing." Many strategies actually undermine long-term prevention, including strategies like joining a vigilante group or militia, or using other extra-legal forms of justice. Recommendations from the study focus on creating the basic conditions that urban communities need to be able to come together collectively to address violence, from upgrading basic infrastructure, to better harnessing the energies of youth and increasing coordination across levels and sectors of government and civil society.

The second purpose of the seminar was to provide a platform to focus on the extent and nature of youth violence in particular, and on appropriate interventions to address the issue of youth violence, building on some of the findings of the above report. Representatives from both government and civil society presented a range of interventions and projects dealing with youth violence, and violence in general. These presentations are available below.

Speakers included Mr. Alexandre Marc, head of the World Bank's Conflict Crime and Violence team (Washington DC), Mr. Claus Astrup (Country Representative SA, World Bank), Mr. Patrick Burton (CJCP), Ms. Lezanne Leoschut (CJCP), Ms Joan Moeketsi (Gauteng Department of Community Safety), Mr. Sean Tait (African Police Civilian Oversight Forum), Ms Betzi Pierce (NICRO) and Mr. Zain Halle (Khulisa).