AMUPREV was launched in 2009 in response to demand from a group of Central American mayors for assistance in addressing crime and violence in their municipalities. At the time, the Merida Initiative had been underway for two years, initiated in 2007 to respond to rising drug trafficking and crime in Mexico and Central America. Funding heavily focused on law enforcement and deterrence but in time it became clear that the approach was not producing results and that greater emphasis was needed on “building strong and resilient communities” to address the root causes of violence and demand for drugs.

ICMA partnered with Institute for Local Development in Central America (IDELCA) to launch AMUPREV, a regional knowledge sharing platform and municipal strengthening project to build local government capacity to formulate and implement crime and violence prevention, with the following objectives:

• Support the development of regional peer knowledge networks to ensure that crime prevention activities become part of the municipal agenda.
• Support comprehensive municipal-based violence and crime prevention strategies and programs in select municipalities.

ICMA’s approach to AMUPREV was informed by its experience in the Latin American/Caribbean (LAC) region working with municipalities, municipal associations and regional organizations, and its unique and successful CityLinks™ program for peer-to-peer partnerships between US and host country cities.

AMUPREV worked simultaneously at the regional, national, and municipal levels. At the regional level, AMUPREV facilitated and supported a regional network of national municipal associations to exchange experience and knowledge on municipal crime and violence prevention. At the national level, AMUPREV worked with municipal associations to enhance their knowledge and communications about crime and violence prevention to support municipal leadership in crime and violence prevention. At the municipal level, AMUPREV supported the creation of municipal violence prevention committees/councils (MVPCs) that brought together community leaders, police, municipal staff, national government representatives, sectoral representatives and other stakeholders to plan, support and implement violence prevention initiatives in their communities. ICMA helped the MVPCs develop communications plans and campaigns; conduct diagnostics of the risk and protective factors in their municipalities; develop strategic and work plans to promote, coordinate and leverage initiatives in areas such as education, health, sports, the arts (music/dance/theater), crime prevention through environmental design, and many others supported and implemented by MVPC members. As part of the CityLinks™ Component, ICMA conducted a series of municipal partnerships with cities in the US to share the model of community-oriented policing and collaborative multi-stakeholder efforts to combat crime.

AMUPREV began implementation in 2009 in five municipalities in two countries (Panama and El Salvador. By the end of AMUPREV in 2019, the project scope encompassed five countries, 29 municipalities, and eight municipal associations, including  the Dominican Republic, Belize and Puerto Rico . In addition to the activities above AMUPREV also documented and shared the experience in Brazil of the Unidades de Policía Pacificadora (UPPs) as a model for potential adaptation to and application in Central America. ICMA developed a Toolkit and Comprehensive Training Program on the UPP model and  supported a series of exchanges with El Salvador to share lessons learned.  AMUPREV also held a total of 6 Training of Trainers (TOT) workshops to implement an awareness-raising program in selected schools in the Dominican Republic to prevent victimization related to trafficking in persons.