Addressing Urban Violence and Local Security: Participatory Research with Young People in Colombia and South Africa

This report documents a persistent mismatch between official security priorities, still centred on crime and armed actors, and what young people themselves
identify as most urgent: unemployment, lack of opportunity, and mental health. Drawing on these findings and recognising that despite being separated by continent, language, and political history, the two cities share a history of chronic violence, deep and persistent inequality, the report closes with a set of concrete, youth-informed proposals for rethinking security policy and practice, built around care, recognition, and genuine youth participation rather than surveillance and control.