BOGOTA, Colombia (CMC) –The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has introduced the Safe Cities platform that provides tools to improve citizen security in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The platform, which will be available starting the second quarter of the year, will offer artificial intelligence and data analytics tools to support cities in constructing and managing their citizen security plans.

It is being developed through a pilot initiative with the city of Florianópolis, Brazil, and will allow municipal managers to make real-time diagnoses that integrate geo-referenced data on crime, violence and fear, risk factors and institutional performance as well as prioritise problems found in the city and highlight effective programmes to address them.

The platform will coordinate diagnosis and solutions with education, health, social assistance, and urban development portfolios, promoting a multisectoral approach to security, monitor programmes implemented by the city and provide society transparency of results and the possibility of participation.

“Solutions like this one for digital transformation make it possible to respond to relevant challenges for society, such as citizen security, in an optimised way, opening up space for sustainable results. The model being built with Florianópolis has great scalability potential for the entire country and the region,” said Morgan Doyle, IDB Group representative in Brazil.

The IDB said that this initiative falls within the scope of its Vision 2025 as part of its efforts to strengthen good governance of institutions and leverage digitalisation to promote sustainable and equitable growth in the region.

The Washington-based financial institution said that over the last decade together with other international donor agencies they have supported cities and governments at the state and federal level in developing a comprehensive approach to citizen security and in the search for tailored solutions.

The IDB said that part of these efforts were seen during the Citizen Security and Justice Week, which took place from February 28 to March 3, in Bogotá.

Under the slogan “Police Transformation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Building the Police of the Future”, the meeting promoted the exchange of experiences and good practices in the processes of police transformation and modernisation that countries in the region are implementing.