Local evidence: The foundation of good practice

Evidence-informed violence and crime prevention interventions make neighbourhoods more inclusive, vibrant and safe because they allow the interventions to better reflect and address key issues for all people in that space. Safety audits and community safety forums are two mechanisms for robust community engagements that generate evidence. In addition, bringing stakeholders together, such as through communities of practice (CoP), allows us to learn from one another’s successes and challenges so that good work can be up-scaled and adapted. This brief discusses why local evidence is critical to inform effective violence and crime prevention interventions and how inclusive methodologies, such as safety audits, can provided grounded evidence. It also highlights how a CoP can be a critical source of ongoing peer learning, support and action. It further includes project examples that indirectly or directly, address risk factors to crime and violence and as such contribute to safer neighbourhoods.

This Practice Brief draws on the presentations and discussions at the first SPRINT Champions Event, held in October 2022, which brought together representatives from national, provincial and local government and civil society organisations. It is targeted at urban practitioners who want to contribute to making neighbourhoods and cities more inclusive, vibrant and safe. It does this by offering key insights shared by other practitioners who participated in the Champions Event.