ICMA has announced a new partnership with Creative Associates International, Inc. (Creative) to reduce youth crime and violence in Panama in the USAID-funded Community Youth-at-Risk Program.  ICMA will support the goal of improving sectoral capacity to provide coordinated and comprehensive responses for at-risk youth, with a focus on strengthening the Child and Adolescent Unit of the Panamanian National Police (CAPU).

In collaboration with Creative and its partners, ICMA will:

• Provide technical support to CAPU to develop an operational and training plan to improve their capacity to deliver more effective youth crime and gang prevention initiatives at the national and local level.
• Provide support to CAPU in facilitated problem solving methods with communities and youth that promote dialogue, forums for permanent discussion, and decision-making around youth and gang violence.
• Support municipal efforts to provide better services to at-risk youth and collaborate with community groups, the private sector, national police, and government initiatives.
• Build linkages with currently funded USAID crime prevention programs through its different components, including CityLinks and regional information-sharing, to strengthen local municipal capacity to address youth violence through better prevention planning and resource allocation. 
• Share regional best practices and lessons learned from the region and the U.S. with Panamanian municipalities.

ICMA has also been helping Central American municipalities develop innovative violence prevention programs since signing a $1.5 million cooperative agreement with USAID last year.

The program, Municipal Partnerships for Violence Prevention in Central America, which continues through September 2012, seeks to promote comprehensive local-level violence prevention strategies and programs with stakeholders, foster development of regional peer knowledge networks that will be self-sustaining in the future, and provide training and technical assistance to local governments and community groups in coordination with police and other local-level programs.

ICMA has worked in Central America since 1991. In addition to country-based programs in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, ICMA administered the USAID-funded Regional Partnership for Decentralization and Local Governance in the Americas. Through this initiative (1998-2006), ICMA worked to promote best practices and share leading-edge technologies aimed at strengthening democracy and local governance.