Safety in Public Spaces: Latin American Experiences and Strategies for Improvement

With the aim of disseminating good practices in public safety from a territorial perspective, with a focus on prevention and with a cross-cutting gender equity approach, CAF—development bank of Latin America—organized an online forum on safe public spaces to present strategies and success stories on addressing the problem of insecurity associated with crime and violence. The event featured CAF specialists, as well as international consultants, local authorities and representatives of civil society organizations from different countries in the region.

This was the second meeting in the framework of the “Safer Cities” Annual Cycle of Talks, through which CAF seeks to improve knowledge of local governments on methodologies and good practices in public safety, with a focus on prevention and local leadership, incorporating the gender perspective.

In the presentation, Pablo López, coordinator of the Cities with a Future initiative, stressed that the fear of crime is usually a major barrier to social inclusion and urban productivity, two dimensions that CAF promotes in cities, and that these forums allow officials and specialists to think about effective solutions to break down this barrier. Similarly, Guadalupe Aguirre, a specialist in public safety, noted that CAF works to promote planning and prevention in citizen security, aiming to improve policies in this area. In this sense, she stressed that the problem is approached from two fundamental dimensions: “the objective vision of what actually occurs, and the subjective dimension of security, which is how we live and how we perceive cities and the fear of crime, of which we are often victims on a daily basis.”

Furthermore, Tobias Schleider, consultant and international specialist in democratic security, discussed the opportunity that local governments have to design public policies for the prevention of violence and crime, based on popular knowledge about insecurity in public spaces. “It is known today, thanks to a series of meta-analyses developed by universities around the world, that if strategies to eradicate crime in specific areas of the city are adequate, problems are not displaced, but on the contrary, the benefits of the policy implementation site are disseminated to surrounding places.” This “creates a virtuous circle, because residents feel safer and collaborate in prevention, providing positive feedback to the system,” he noted.

The event also featured Macarena Rau, architect specializing in environmental design for crime prevention and president of CPTED International; Gustavo Restrepo, architect and urban planner specialized in social city planning; Mariana Alegre, general coordinator of the Lima Cómo Vamos citizen observatory (Peru); Samuel Dias, Secretary of Infrastructure of Fortaleza (Brazil); and Luisa Bibiana Rubio, manager of the “Ciempiés Caminos Seguros” Program (Bogotá, Colombia).

With an analysis of specific cases from the cities of Lima, Fortaleza and Bogotá, the debate highlighted that crime prevention programs must incorporate inclusion, access to justice, reintegration, accessibility to basic services and strengthening of the social fabric as fundamental strategies for the prevention of crime and violence. In this connection, CAF is in the final phase of the publication of its Guide for Safer Cities, designed as a tool at the service of local governments, which systematizes concepts, evidence, promising experiences, lessons learned and good practices in policies to reduce crime, violence and fear of crime.

More information about the Cities with a Future initiative:

Cities with a Future seeks to promote and strengthen an efficient urban management model, focused on improving access to opportunities, in order to help boost productivity and enhance social inclusion, considering environmental sustainability and gender equity as cross-cutting axes in Latin American cities.

Learn more about CAF’s work in this issue and discover proposals for urban solutions and strategies to improve quality of life in the region.