The main focus of the Safer Cities approach is of building a culture of urban safety and social cohesion in order to address the relationship between crime and urbanization.

Particularly in the developing world, the trend of urbanization has been accompanied by increased levels of crime, violence and lawlessness. Crime impacts on the everyday life of city residents, on the quality of public space and on economic prospects. Crime scares away investors or diverts large amounts of scarce resources from social development.

What is innovative here is to mainstream urban safety in the urban management and planning process. In doing this, there is a need to focus on the role of local authorities and promoting their leadership and responsibility for urban safety.

Another key element in urban safety has been the support of crime prevention partnerships and initiatives implemented in collaboration with local authorities, the criminal justice system, civil society and even the private sector.

Clearly there are big challenges in sharing knowledge, expertise, and good practices that can inspire other cities and regions. Yet an important effort on evaluation and assessment of experiences should be done in order to increase the evidence about how urban safety and social cohesion work.

In addition, training and capacity building for local authorities and other stakeholders on urban safety is an important task, as is building awareness of national law enforcement agencies on the role of local stakeholders.