Safe City Action
Fredrikstad and Nordic Safe Cities are working to promote democracy and citizenship, and counter extremism and hate through universal preventive programmes in arenas such as schools, youth clubs and libraries.
City Portrait
Fredrikstad is a medium-sized Norwegian city with approximately 82K inhabitants. The city was founded in 1567 by King Frederik II and is situated between Oslo and Gothenburg, close to the Swedish border. Frederikstad consists of a mixture of coastal scenery, agriculture areas, a city centre and surrounding local communities. Fredrikstad lies by the estuary of Glomma, Norway´s longest river, which had a huge influence on the industrial situation and development through lumber and shipyard industry. During the last decades, the city has grown into a hub for information technology, environmental industry and circular economy. In 2017, Fredrikstad was awarded the national award for most attractive city by the Norwegian government on the basis of social, economic and environmental factors.
Safe City Challenges
As Fredrikstad was historically an industrial city, it was hit harder by the downscaling of local industry in the 80’s and 90’s. The city is consequently still struggling with a range of social challenges linked to public health, unemployment, social welfare, lower educational levels and higher rates of children living in low-income household compared to the national average. Fredrikstad does not experience a high rate of extremism related activities but has faced some challenges in the last years. The city had a relatively high (compared to other Norwegian cities) number of foreign fighters travelling to Syria and Iraq to join Daesh and other terrorist groups during the Syrian civil war, and has also periodically experienced neo-Nazi and right-wing extremist activity. Fredrikstad’s main challenges concerning building a safe city are preventing youth crime, preventing violent extremism, and maintaining low crime rates linked to night life and alcohol consumption.
Strategy
- Fredrikstad does not operate from a set strategy or Action Plan, the city rather works through the focus areas below and specific initiatives.
FOCUS AREAS
The City of Fredrikstad currently focuses on the following:
- Building local knowledge and competence among city employees.
- Building and maintaining a system for reporting and monitoring early concerns for the population and public servants.
- Close cooperation with local police and civil society to prevent and counter violent extremism.
- Having a range of programs and measures to prevent and counter extremism of all forms, on all prevention levels.
- Using universal arenas as kindergartens, schools, youth clubs etc to reach youth with universal preventive measures linked to formal and non-formal education and learning.
- Building long-term local municipal structures to ensure high quality work in the field.
See more initiatives from the frontlines of Fredrikstad below
Good Practise
Early warning system
Building a functional municipal system for reporting concerns, risk assessment and implementing measures and case work. The early warning system mobilises public servants and the population in general, creates close cooperation with the police, provides a knowledge-based view on violent extremism and builds a local structure that is practical and in accordance with ethics and laws as the main steppingstones.
Read more here