Enabling Community-Oriented Policing in Burkina Faso

Description

The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the U.S. Department of State announces an open competition for organizations to submit applications to carry out a project to help Burkinabe law enforcement use community policing as a tool to improve the social contract with their citizens. The primary objective is to improve partnership with citizens and enhance governance and legitimacy through helping police and communities work more closely with one another. Transforming policing services to better serve the public is easier said than done. It is about building trust between police and citizens. Empowering them to engage with citizens to fulfill the mission of police service, which have to be equitable, transparent and effective. The cascade of changes needed to effectively develop, implement, sustain, and communicate a citizen-oriented approach that reverses decades of underperformance and memories of past abuses is vast. Changing police culture can be as difficult, if not much more difficult, than changing policies, procedures, training. In order to develop a positive public perception, police officers need to engage with the citizens of its community to build a relationship of respect and trust. This program aims to help the law enforcement agencies, defined as the national police and gendarmerie, in Burkina Faso make progress towards the goal of more community-oriented policing. The program will focus solely on Burkina Faso throughout its duration, however INL will permit the grantee to employ regional collaboration as a means of achieving project outcomes. The implementer shall use this overall framework to focus on the following enabling changes. (1) Supporting the integration of community-oriented policing principles into initial and in-service training; (2) Enhancing human resource, leadership, and management skills required for effective and sustained implementation of community-oriented policing; (3) Ensuring public communication systems are able to proactively and effectively communicate positive changes and respond to incidents. The combined effect of working in these areas is to motivate law enforcement personnel and communities and promote transparency, accountability, dialogue, and performance improvements. In turn this will reduce a key driver of instability, distrust and poor government service delivery. This project will build on and support other INL engagements in Burkina Faso. The implementer will be responsible for active coordination with the many ongoing police reform efforts, including both host government initiatives and donor programs. This program must coordinate, learn from, and proactively look for opportunities to partner with other existing efforts, including the European Union, the U.S. Department of State, G5 Sahel regional organization, and others. Given the context, INL believes that progress on changing perceptions will require thoughtful analysis, close engagement with host country and citizens alike and an adaptive, iterative approach to hone hypotheses, respond to and anchor ideas in local actors, and identify and capitalize on emerging opportunities and navigate constraints. This project will engage on the policy and leadership level as well as technical training and equipment to improve police skills and knowledge relating to community policing. It will involve citizens and civil society and include public communication considerations throughout. Above all, because the focus is systemic change in how the police are seen by the public, it will ensure that the government and civil society actors are in the lead.

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