Chapter 6
Creating and Measuring Results

In 2020 and 2021 we will work with each of the cities through their chosen ‘safe city action’ to create results locally. Nordic Safe Cities will function as an advisor to reinforce existing strategies or concepts, and as an entrepreneur to shape and launch new pilot concepts. We further aim to compare the metrics and success criteria, experiences and results across the cities when dealing with similar challenges. This will hopefully give us an opportunity to compare the outcome and impact of the work done in and with the cities and share and scale ‘what works’. The roadmap that follows details our next steps as we seek to create lasting results together.

The Nordic Safe Cities Roadmap 2020-2021

 

 

Throughout 2020-2021, the Nordic cities will work on their safe city action, meeting colleagues from other cities and working together to get support on new inspiration at summits, camps, online seminars and on cross-Nordic initiatives.

Towards a Nordic Safe Cities measurement model

Measuring the impact of preventive efforts is difficult. This is largely because of the multifaceted nature of the initiatives and their outcomes. A key obstacle is to measure impact and effect of a given preventive intervention; How to show that violent activity or radicalisation into extremism would have otherwise occurred had there not been an intervention can prove to be very difficult. Another obstacle is the difficulty in capturing valid indicators that reflect the local context such as socio-economic factors and cultural differences. And what works in one city might not work in another.

These obstacles, however, do not exclude the possibility of evaluating and learning from preventative efforts. Nordic Safe Cities has developed this model to evaluate actions and interventions for the prevention of extremist hate and violence in the Nordic countries.

Our evaluation process begins by documenting what was done. Then results are tracked and collated. Finally, we reflect on what was learned so that what worked well can applied to other interventions and/or scaled.

Tracking the outcomes (and hereby the potential impact) is the difficult part. For some interventions, it might not be feasible, but most preventative efforts can benefit from tracking the changes in attitudes, behaviours, relationships or competencies. This often proves a fulfilling analysis to determine the outcome, as it is precisely attitudes, behaviours, and relationships that push and pull individuals toward and away from violent extremist activity and that create enabling conditions for violent extremist environments to flourish.

The model below is based on elements from the basic Log-frame model, the United States Institute of Peace’s report on measuring C/PVE and Professor Tom Tiller from Tromsø University’s model for health interventions.

 

 

Based on this model, we hope to determine the safety impact that our member cities create based on the outcomes of their preventive activities and our help in shaping these.