Urban Research Series: Tackling Urban Fragility

Achieving Safe and Inclusive Cities for Young People by Tackling Urban Fragility

This is the first report of Plan International’s Urban Research Series. The report introduces the concept of fragility, and the origins of urban fragility, then profiles the Safe and Inclusive Cities (SAIC) programme. The programme was funded by the Danish International Development Agency under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.

This report offers an overview of the theory of change of SAIC and its implementation across four diverse countries in Sub-Saharan Africa between 2018 and 2021. It then highlights key findings from the qualitative endline evaluation of the programme, drawing on interviews with key stakeholders, focus group discussions and the most significant change stories from the young people involved.

The findings represent the perceptions of all these stakeholders regarding programme success and impact, as well as lessons learned and considerations for programme strengthening and scale-up. This document sets the scene and offers necessary background information for three further reports, which will focus on 1) violence prevention and reduction, 2) decent work, and 3) civic participation.

These reports will draw on the quantitative evaluation of the SAIC programme and will seek to establish to what extent the findings presented here are supported.