Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading in Khayelitsha – Social, Situational and Institutional Crime Prevention: Achievements and Trends of a Bilateral Financial Cooperation Programme

“VPUU: Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading in Khayelitsha”
The programme is a partnership between the City of Cape Town, the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation through the Development Bank KfW and the local community. As part of the South African-German bilateral Development Cooperation it has been implemented since 2005.

VPUU tackles violence on 3 levels: several social, situational and institutional crime prevention measures are combined with infrastructure and local economic development projects in four Safe Node Areas of Cape Town’s large predominantly African township. Khayelitsha means “New Home” for an estimated still growing population of 600,000 suffering from one of the highest crime rates in South Africa.

The area-based approach is centred around so called “Active Boxes”, a type of safe places along pedestrian desire lines. They consist of caretaker flats, assembly points for neighbourhood patrols and offices for local initiatives, e.g. on gender-based violence. Participatory baseline, household, business surveys, and crime mapping inform the VPUU management on the planning and construction of safer public spaces. New approaches for community based Operation and Maintenance of facilities are established, so that positive changes can be sustained.

A monitoring and evaluation framework with a set of indicators has been prepared to describe the impacts achieved towards improved safety and quality of life of the population by 2010.