Safety for All...Equally!

Thanks to funding received from the Agence intergouvernementale de la Francophonie, the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC) held a sub-regional seminar on delinquency prevention and community safety in Dakar on January 22-24, 2004. The seminar provided an opportunity for Senegalese stakeholders to (1) discuss the challenges and potential strategies to attain sustainable safety in communities; (2) talk with stakeholders and experts from Francophone Africa, Belgium, France and Canada about practices and challenges in delinquency prevention, especially the role of the police and the judiciary, city initiatives and citizen participation; and (3) identify concrete initiatives which could work in Senegal. It was hoped that the seminar would lead to the implementation of a Safer Cities program and to networking among Senegalese cities. Each one of  the objectives was reached.

Over two and a half days, people worked together on community safety, defined as a common good  contributing to the sustainable development of people and communities. Mayors and their representatives from fifteen cities, members of the National Assembly and government ministers, police representatives from all levels of policing,  and youth and women’s groups, all participated in the seminar. In addition to the Senegalese participants, the mayors and prevention coordinators of the cities of Abidjan, Yaoundé and Bamako, representatives of the European Forum for Urban Safety, the Belgian Permanent Secretariat on Prevention (Secrétariat permanent à la prévention), the Nairobi offices of UN-HABITAT and the Agence intergouvernementale de la Francophonie attended the seminar.  Overall, about 75 people participated actively in seminar activities.

In his opening remarks, the Minister of the Interior of Senegal, Mr. Macky SALL, reminded participants of the significance of delinquency, crime and insecurity in the development of persons and communities. He further stated that the answers to these problems “must not be merely punitive in nature, though this may have a deterrent effect, but rather multisectoral, in keeping with the saying ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. 


Minister SALL