Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have been heavily impacted by violence. For many years, the region has exhibited the highest rates of violent crime globally, such as homicides and gender-based crimes, reaching levels that can be classified as chronic violence. Besides, citizens' perception of insecurity is comparable to that of countries affected by armed conflict, and the institutions responsible for dealing with the different manifestations of violence and insecurity experience very low levels of trust among the population.

For decades, security issues have affected the sustainable development of the countries in this region and have weakened their democracy and the quality of their governance. It is therefore understandable that citizen security has become a priority issue for the regional agenda and one of the main challenges for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, especially after the general crisis caused by the pandemic.

In this context, UNDP published the report "Analysis on innovation in citizen security and human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean". The purpose of this document is to generate evidence-based knowledge from the experiences of five countries and make available a set of programming recommendations for countries, as well as to contribute to consolidating UNDP's regional offer on citizen security.