The nature of violence is changing in many of the UNDP countries of operation. While the number of violent conflicts is decreasing, the level of social violence is greater than ever. In fact, levels of violence are higher in a number of non-conflict countries than in countries at war. The complex challenges emanating from the changing nature of violence can no longer be met with separate, sectoral interventions alone.

UNDP has therefore developed the Community Security and Social Cohesion (CSSC) approach as a multi- sectoral programming approach to help ensure coherent interventions to enhance security and social cohesion at the community and national level in crisis contexts.

This paper is based on a comparative analysis of UNDP CSSC programmes in 13 countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America and the South Pacific.1