Guinea-Bissau police prepares to preventing violence and ensuring security during elections

The two-week “Methodology and Didactic Training of Trainer Course” focusing on Electoral Violence and Security (EVS) ended today at the United Nations Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau -UNIOGBIS- with the 30 participants and facilitators happy to have reached each other their expectations and goals.

29 Jun 2018

Guinea-Bissau police prepares to preventing violence and ensuring security during elections

The course aimed to enhance the understanding and application of electoral laws and the individual voter’s right to vote by law enforcement agencies designated with the responsibility of maintaining law and order to ensure the prevention of electoral violence. The EVS aspect of the course, deals with the preparatory, conduct and debriefing of electoral operations.

For Blanca Balack, a facilitator from Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), the training was very success: “We had very good feedback from the participants, they were very active, we could see very clear improvement. We have seen excellent presentations in a number of topics related to police, such as ethics or human rights and we only hope that they will be able later to really use what they have learnt in their respective contexts,” she explained.

Praising the opportunity offered to him to attend the course, National Guard Colonel, Assana Embalo,

said that the training will help them a lot in their work in the security sector in the country.
“We will put into practice all the knowledge acquired in this training and we will convey everything we have learned to our colleagues who did not have the opportunity to participate in this course to improve our performance according to what we had the opportunity to learn these days,” he added, stressing that he is very happy because “I learnt many new things. I am very proud to have participated in this training.”

For another participant, Aida Aminata Fadia, “this training was very important and will help me a lot as a police trainer that I am. The content was very relevant, allowing participants to self-evaluate and evaluate each other. The methodology used was very effective because it allowed us to get through the messages, communicate easily with colleagues, listen to each other carefully before making any evaluation.”

Resolution 2404 of February 2018 of the United Nations Security Council mandated UNIOGBIS amongst others, to provide strategic and technical support to national law enforcement agencies to combat Drug trafficking and Transnational Organized Crime (DTOC) in close cooperation with UNODC. It further requested UNIOGBIS to support inclusive, free, fair and transparent legislative and presidential elections within the Guinea-Bissau constitutional timeframe.

It is within this framework, that the police component of UNIOGBIS in collaboration with the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), Accra-Ghana organized this two-week Training of Trainers course on Methodology and Didactic Train of Trainer course with special focus on EVS.

The aim of the training of trainers was to provide them with skills for the application of modern teaching techniques and awareness of latest Methodology and Didactic approaches with the aim to reinforce their capacity in the delivery of prospective trainings for law enforcement officers.

Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General (DSRSG), David Mclachlan-Karr, presided over the opening ceremony on 18 June at UNIOGBIS.

The course was fully funded by the German Government.