Launch of the State of Urban Safety in South Africa Report 2020/21

The State of Urban Safety in South Africa Report 2020/21 was launched on Thursday 9th June 2022 at the Kempton Park Civic Centre, in the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, to an audience from local, national and provincial government, academia as well as civil society.

The report presents, analyses and assesses city-level crime trends towards more efficient urban safety institutionalisation, planning, targeted financing and strategy development at the city level and across spheres of government. Among others, it makes recommendations about gender-responsive community safety planning as part of the prevention of gender-based violence and femicide efforts and the material inclusion of women and other marginalised persons in the city space and society.

It was produced by the Urban Safety Reference Group (USRG), which is convened by the South African Cities Network (SACN), with the support of the GIZ Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention (VCP) Programme. VCP is implemented by GIZ on behalf of of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), in collaboration with the Global Affairs Canada (GAC).?

Head of Cooperation at the German Embassy Pretoria, Christian Grün, gave opening remarks at the launch, reflecting on the high rates of murder, gender-based violence, robberies and hijackings in cities particularly and the critical value of the report in making available data and evidence that can guide targeted violence prevention interventions.

Ms. Avril Williamson, the Director-General of South Africa’s Department of Cooperative Governance (DCoG), the VCP Programme’s political executing partner, provided the keynote speech, reiterating the high gender-based violence and femicide rates and emphasising how gendered and spatialised crime and violence are in post-apartheid South Africa. She noted that the report was a critical “call to action reinforcing the need to redouble our respective efforts and continue to forge partnerships and being cooperative” in the approach to preventing and responding to violence and crime.

Gail Styger of the civil society organisation, Wot-if? Trust, Justin Neke of Indlela Growth Strategies, which supported the development of the report, the City of Johannesburg’s Member of the Mayoral Committee for Public Safety, David Tembe, and General Isaac Mapiyeye, Chief of Police at the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department, participated in a panel discussion, reflecting on some of the report’s findings in relation to local practices by their organisations. The common elements of the discussion included the importance of breaking down siloes and adopting integrated and multi-sectoral approaches to violence prevention, as well as focusing on some of the drivers of violence such as unemployment, harmful gender norms and xenophobia.

The launch event also marks almost a decade of partnership between the South African Cities Network and the VCP Programme supporting capacity building of, exchange between and advocacy with local and national government partners through the activities of the Urban Safety Reference Group.

For more on violence prevention and urban safety in South Africa, visit??www.saferspaces.org.za.

Written by Tlholohelo Mokgere, Junior Technical Advisor for VCP