Capacity-Development and Training
These are examples of the kind of capacity-strengthening work we do: tailored workshops, technical accompaniment, and knowledge-sharing designed around the real needs of the people, institutions, and organisations we work with. These are not off-the-shelf courses, but collaborations built with each partner to strengthen their capacity to design, implement, and monitor initiatives that are human-centred and contribute to improving people's safety and the peace and wellbeing of their communities and cities.
Strengthening local government capacity
We design tailored workshops and training materials for municipal officials seeking to strengthen their capacity to design, implement, and monitor programmes that improve community safety and wellbeing. Through these workshops, municipal teams improve how they diagnose local challenges, coordinate across departments and partners, and meaningfully engage communities, particularly groups whose needs are often overlooked, in ways that reflect the specific context, diversity and needs of the communities they serve.
For example, our work with the Safer Cities Unit of the eThekwini Municipality in Durban, South Africa, helped scale up local human security plans to 10 localities using a human-centred approach.
Strengthening civil society initiatives
We support civil society organisations and community groups in applying a human security approach as a strategic lens to strengthen their work, whether that means better understanding the challenges facing the communities or groups they serve, finding creative responses to complex problems, or monitoring and evaluating their interventions in ways that stay grounded in people's everyday experiences.
For example, we worked with a collective of young artists accompanied by the Mazisi Kunene Foundation in Durban to design a monitoring framework for their work with young people in the KwaNdengezi community.
International capacity building with UN partners
We deliver specialised training for policymakers, civil society organisations, urban practitioners, UN agencies, and researchers working on global challenges affecting social development, safety, and wellbeing in cities and human settlements. Our trainings introduce practical tools to help institutions move beyond siloed interventions toward more inclusive and resilient approaches to urban development.
Drawing on practical experience from work carried out in various cities, we design specialised interactive sessions, such as the "Strengthening Cities' Capacities for Housing, Safety and Community Wellbeing through the Human Security Approach," delivered at the 13th World Urban Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan, in collaboration with the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security