The world now has the largest population of young people in history. Unfortunately, a large proportion of these young people are unlikely to live past the age of 30. Worldwide, youth aged 15-to-29 make up more than 40 percent of all homicides, while millions more fall victim to nonfatal violent crimes. Urban youth violence in the Americas not only severely harms and cuts short lives, it also increases the cost of health care, policing and other social services that support vibrant, thriving cities.
Yet there is no shortage of innovation among practitioners on the ground and policymakers dedicated to finding solutions to the challenge of youth violence in cities throughout the Americas; rather what is lacking is evidence about which policies and programs work. This action tour will offer an opportunity to better understand how practitioners, policymakers, researchers and the philanthropic community can work together to harness the power of innovation and generate evidence to improve human lives.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the University of Chicago Urban Labs, and the World Bank are honored to convene leaders working on the front lines of urban youth violence prevention to discuss new ways to strengthen urban public safety and improve the lives of youth in cities throughout the Americas. The tour’s panels and opportunities for exchange will illuminate novel policy levers for tackling urban youth violence, highlight emerging systems for evaluating and acting on human intelligence and rigorous data, and feature potentially scalable solutions for reducing youth crime and violence.
