Blog – Prevention concepts

In a series of webinars on the 7th and 8th of June, we drew from the existing evidence, experience and expertise of the civil society, academia and government sector in the prevention of violence and discussed how this could be utilised for the evidence-based implementation of the most relevant South African safety policy frameworks.

In the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, issues surrounding individuals’ ability to engage with their communities locally or nationally has come into question as societal inequalities have been exacerbated and people isolated from one another.

Good communication and respectful responses to local service delivery problems can prevent anger and violence.

Local government, the closest interface between government and communities, is a key driver of quality service delivery including the promotion of community safety. The Constitution demands that services and functions that have the most developmental impact on citizens should be performed by local government.

What we’ve learned through knowledge management within the South African-German development cooperation

What is the existing empirical evidence linking Climate Change to violent conflict? On 5 March 2019, Gerald A. Moore, a research assistant at the Safety and Violence Initiative, interviewed Professor Michael Brzoska, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg, who shared his research on the links between Climate Change and violent conflict from a global perspective and its particular relevance to South Africa.

Two separate pieces of research published by the Networking HIV and AIDS Community of Southern Africa (NACOSA) highlight the need for services and screening for victims of gender based violence as a critical part of the country’s HIV response.

The Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention Programme (VCP) of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and its partners trained over 120 young people as youth leaders and ambassadors of safer communities in two provinces, Gauteng and Eastern Cape. The purpose of this training is capacity-building of young leaders who can then contribute to the building of safer communities and to reducing crime and violence, which is on the rise in South African communities.

The creation of a safe, non-commercial and welcoming public space in Cape Town is necessary to challenge the barriers cemented in the past which taint our experience of the present and keep us apart.