Safe and Inclusive Cities: Research to Reduce Urban Violence, Poverty, and Inequalities
Programs and partnerships
Summary
The world became predominantly urban in 2007. Urbanization brings with it possibilities of improved access to jobs, goods, and services for poor people in developing countries.Read more
The world became predominantly urban in 2007. Urbanization brings with it possibilities of improved access to jobs, goods, and services for poor people in developing countries. However, a number of development challenges have emerged given that most urban growth is occurring in larger cities and slums in developing countries. There has been a sharp increase in the incidence and severity of violence. This has a number of implications for sustainable and equitable development.
This research project will provide operational support to develop and manage the Safe and Inclusive Cities (SAIC) program. This research initiative, developed by IDRC and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development, represents a joint investment of $4 million over four years. The program will build an evidence base on the connections between urban violence, poverty, and inequalities. It also seeks to identify the most effective strategies to address these challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.
The initiative aims to:
-clarify the relationship between urban violence, poverty, and inequalities
-identify the most effective strategies for tackling these challenges
-contribute to shaping the frameworks and methodologies that will guide future research on these issues
-help developing country researchers enhance their skills to design and execute innovative, policy-relevant, rigorous, and gender-sensitive research projects in cities affected by violence
-influence policy and practice by disseminating research results locally, regionally, and internationally.
Investing in research from the ground up, based on local realities and local understandings, the chapters in this book reflect research undertaken in dozens of cities in Latin America, Sub- Saharan Africa, and South Asia. Northern theories on their own are inadequate to explain everyday, structural, and sporadic forms of interpersonal and criminal violence in the cities assessed. At the core of this book is the ethos that lasting solutions to urban violence and inequality are best developed locally. This is the first of two books which map inter- linkages between social, political, and economic forms of inequality, exclusion, and violence.