Co-ownership and Collaboration: Insights into the Measurement of Impact and Change from Evidence-Based Community and State Violence Prevention Partnerships

Tariro Mutongwizo,Lezanne Leoschut,Patrick Burton

doi:10.5334/sta.fh

Abstract

Effective partnerships in community crime and violence prevention interventions are challenging to foster. While this may be the case, their merits cannot be denied, thus it is necessary to involve diverse stakeholders in processes that aim to address violence and crime prevention in order to better approach the causes of crime. However practical experiences have identified the challenges of crime prevention partnerships, particularly in developing indicators that appropriately measure and work to monitor and evaluate progress. It has also been noted that it is difficult to discern which interventions yield success, particularly in partnerships with various stakeholders. This article therefore encourages joint assessments from the onset of crime prevention projects with the development of indicators that are relatable to all partners. The paper will draw on three violence and crime prevention pilot projects, conducted in South Africa. The discussion will focus on the processes of developing performance measurement frameworks and the challenges and successes experienced throughout the monitoring, evaluation and learning process.

Highlights

IntroductionThrough multi-stakeholder engagement, safety audits and safety plans were effected in three pilot sites that were identified with the assistance of the Department of Community Safety as being crime hotspots
It has become increasingly obvious that in order to adequately address violence in the long term, a multi-stakeholder, multisectoral and partnership-driven approach is required to deliver services that address the root causes of crime and violence
To assess integrated strategies aimed at preventing violence, evidence from South African experiences has been used to highlight some of the inherent difficulties in developing appropriate outcome indicators that adequately capture the impact and role of often diverse interventions, implemented by different partners

Summary

Introduction

Through multi-stakeholder engagement, safety audits and safety plans were effected in three pilot sites that were identified with the assistance of the Department of Community Safety as being crime hotspots. The responsibility of the multi-stakeholder forum was to create a platform to encourage collaboration among parties in the bid to identify challenges in these communities Their mandate was expanded to collectively develop solutions to the safety challenges experienced in the three sites. The diverse stakeholders were brought together to encourage and ensure that each component of the project was monitored appropriately and that lines of communication between all the stakeholders were open (Tait & Ehlers 2010) The features of these sites will be briefly outlined in order to create a basis for the discussions

Methods

Findings

Conclusion