UP’s EMS Faculty hosts multi-stakeholder workshop to encourage a shift from ‘reactive policing to proactive peacebuilding’

PRETORIA - On Friday, 19 September, the University of Pretoria (UP) hosted a cross-sector workshop on violence and crime prevention in Gauteng to commemorate World Peace Day, observed annually on 21 September. The event brought together a diverse range of stakeholders, including MMCs for Community Safety, to pledge renewed commitment to creating safer, more peaceful and more resilient communities in the province through collaborative strategies.

The workshop was held at the Javett Art Centre at UP, and organised by the University’s School of Public Management and Administration in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS) in collaboration with the Department of Internationalisation and Strategic Partnerships.

Hosted under the theme ‘Sharing Good Practices and Shaping Policy for Sustainable Attainment of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Peace and Security in Gauteng’, the workshop assembled community leaders and representatives from faith-based groups alongside government officials and international experts to explore both research-informed and on-the-ground crime prevention policies and strategies. 

The Event director Dr Rakeshnie Ramoutar-Prieschl, the Director of the Department of Internationalisation and Strategic Partnerships at the University of Pretoria, opened the event by urging all attendees to actively participate in and engage with the proceedings.

“UP is proud to play an active role in the advancement of peace and justice in alignment with SDG 16,” said Dean of the Faculty of EMS Professor Margaret Chitiga-Mabugu in her welcome remarks. “Our mission extends beyond the lecture halls; we contribute to these ideas through rigorous research, innovative teaching and strong multisectoral partnerships.”

She added that the University and workshop participants share a common goal: “to co-create evidence-based, sustainable strategies for violence and crime prevention in this province in particular”.

Gauteng faces unique security challenges, including high levels of violent crime, gender-based violence, gang-related activities and recurring community conflicts. Workshop attendees were clear in their understanding that safety is the bedrock for community prosperity, and that fear and instability hamper efforts to make lasting improvements to education, healthcare or economic opportunities. 

According to the convener of the event, Dr Mary Mangai, a senior lecturer at the School of Public Management and Administration and a research representative at the Faculty level, by breaking down silos, these stakeholders are more able to build a shared understanding of the issues at hand and coordinate their efforts in pursuit of common goals. This kind of institutional collaboration is essential for pooling resources, aligning policies and avoiding duplication of efforts in violence and crime prevention. This is achievable when all stakeholders agree to co-create public safety.

“From what we see in the field, there’s a need to move from reactive policing to proactive policing,” said Dr Mangai, who, along with Dr Jan Wilhelm of the University of Potsdam in Germany, set the agenda for the day and offered actionable policy recommendations for various stakeholders in the sector. “Building trust with communities is very important, as is focusing on prevention alongside response – there is more that the police can do to work together with people.”

Emphasising that peacebuilding “goes beyond SAPs”, they briefly demonstrated the role that the government, community leaders and traditional authorities, civil sector and faith-based organisations, the police, academic institutions, and private sector enterprises can play in crime prevention. 

In his keynote address, Nelson Muffuh, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in South Africa, spoke about adopting a new approach to peacebuilding from the UN’s perspective.

“The world faces rising challenges, conflicts old and new, divisions deepened by inequality, hate speech, climate shocks and the disruptive power of technology,” he said. “The tools that once kept peace are being tested as never before.  That’s why the UN leadership is calling for a new approach towards peacebuilding, peacemaking and peacekeeping, one that goes beyond the absence of war and actively builds societies that are resilient to violence, exclusion and injustice.” 

Muffuh added that peace is “not a moral imperative but an economic necessity”. He pointed out that in Gauteng, South Africa’s economic hub, multiple forms of crime affect the long-term socio-economic trajectory of the province.

“When we invest in safety, we unlock development; when we strengthen justice, we build peace; and when we empower communities, we create the conditions for lasting and sustainable peace,” he said.

The keynote was followed by a brief Q&A session, before dignitaries from the province gathered for a panel in which they spoke about the complexities they face at the local level, and the practical prevention and response strategies being employed to tackle specific issues, such as land invasions. The panel featured SAPS Deputy Provincial Commissioner Major General PF Kekana, who outlined the six pillars of the Integrated Crime and Violence Prevention Strategy; Alderman Hannes Coetzee, MMC for Community Safety, City of Tshwane, who focused on the work of the Integrated By-law Enforcement Committee; and Dr Nazira Cachalia, who represented the MMC for Community Safety, City of Johannesburg, who shared insights about the City Safety Strategy.

“The challenge with policies is their implementation, and even if you implement those policies, if you don’t communicate with your people on the ground – residents and communities – then those policies mean nothing,” Coetzee said.

For Dr Cachalia, in cities that are growing in complexity, “the notion of collaboration and coordination isn’t a nice-to-have any longer; we need to think collectively about problems and find the right solutions to them”.  

An international expert panel was then convened on cross-regional security policy as it relates to best practices in other parts of the world. Prof Dr Bernhard Frevel of the University of Applied Sciences for Police and Administration in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany and Dr Antony Otieno of Leiden University in the Netherlands offered their insights via Zoom.

Thereafter, a national panel discussed the benefits of integrated multistakeholder security governance for crime prevention, drawing on local community experiences. It featured Pastor Immanuel Landman, whose premise was that safety needs to be taken up by communities as a whole; Arnold Adams of Eersterust, who focused on “bottom-up governance” within communities rather than depending on outdated policy frameworks; and Rtd Col Jan Malan of Streetsafe in Tshwane, which safeguards neighbours, who focused on the need to find innovative ways to create lasting peace.

“This workshop was an invitation to partnerships,” said Dr Mangai in her concluding remarks. 

According to her, the institutional collaboration forged through the workshop is expected to strengthen frameworks for sustained coordination among stakeholders. This means Gauteng will likely establish ongoing working groups that continue to meet, plan and monitor progress in crime and violence prevention.