General

Because women’s and girls’ safety involves so many different public and government actors, individual actors tend to focus on different aspects of women’s and girls’ safety based on their own particular skills and interests. For instance, the police might focus primarily on crime prevention strategies, while a grassroots women’s organization might concentrate on raising awareness. Action in all areas is very important for creating safe cities for women, but if actions are not connected to each other, it is difficult to make an overall impact on cities and communities. Building partnerships between different actors working on safe cities for women can help to establish connections and to develop them over time. Partnerships occur when different actors (the media and the municipal urban planning department, for example) work together for a common goal. It is important to build partnerships while creating safe cities for women partnerships help to coordinate different perspectives, resources, and support on the issue of women’s and girls’ safety. Building partnerships is the first step in creating safe cities for women because each future step depends on the input of everyone involved. For instance, “the partnership that is initially mobilized will determine the definition of a problem, the types of diagnostic data that will be gathered, the resources and needs identified, and the evaluation of success” (Whitzman, 2008b, 147).