The training was organised by CSIR in conjunction with UN-HABITAT through the Safer Cities Programme. Participants were from South Africa (Municipalities of Johannesburg, Durban, Emalahleni, Ethekwini and Mangaung), from Tanzania (Temeke, Ilala and Kinondoni Municipalities in Dar es Salaam) and Kenya (Nairobi City Council as well as Association of Local Authorities representatives). Training and presentation were delivered by CSIR/CPC and UN-HABITAT SC Programme, as well as Training Branch (TCBB) and Sustainable Cities Programme experts.

The Toolkit is a joint project of UN-HABITAT Safer Cities Programme with CSIR Crime Prevention Centre. It builds on the respective experience of the two institutions and develops an earlier version developed by CSIR in partnership with UMAC (U MAnaging Conflict) which focused on processes used by crime prevention experts in South Africa.

The revised version includes the experience from cities that have worked with UN-HABITAT in the past 8 years, as well as state of the art inputs from a number of international SC partners and is meant to provide a ‘blueprint’ for municipalities and communities interested in developing and implementing crime prevention initiatives in their municipality.

The toolkit is being refined through test training before its finalization and launching. This first training took place in Pretoria in November 2004. It covered the following areas: creating a local partnership, facilitating a visioning exercise for local partners, designing an effective management structure for LCP, developing monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and designing a communication plan for the partnership.

The second training covered the key modules of Diagnosis, Strategy/Action Plan Formulation and Strategy/Action Plan Implementation.

Safety Audits Tools that support the Diagnosis were discussed and this part of the culminated with a practical safety audit on the Audit in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park. The choice of the audited area was not only appropriate for the training but also for the on going Safer Cities Initiative in the City of Nairobi.

Strategy Development Tools were presented, including the “Scenario Planning Tool” which is a computer aided tool offering different scenario options based on partners and data inputs. Presentations highlighted the processes used in coming up with their respective crime prevention strategies leading to the formulation/validation of a standard model of strategy development, which was tested using the safety audit results as inputs.

The final session consisted of a discussion of the tools used to implement the strategy and likely problems in the implementation. This was in particular related with the Safer Cities experience in Dar es Salaam.

A part from the sharing of experience and learning for participants, the main outcome of the training will be additional material and guidance for the finalization of the Toolkit.

The next toolkit training will take place in March 2005 focusing on the computer supported version of the Toolkit (ICT version).

The launching of the Toolkit is planned for April 2005 during the 11th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Bangkok, Thailand.