ALTUS GLOBAL ALLIANCE AND THE CLEEN FOUNDATION ORGANIZES FIVE DAY REGIONAL TRAINING ON MONITORING AND ADVOCACY ON SECURITY SECTOR GOVERNANCE IN WEST AFRICA

The Altus Global Alliance and CLEEN Foundation are organizing a week long capacity building regional training on “Tools for Monitoring and Advocacy on Security Sector Governance in West Africa”. The training is designed for civil society organizations in West Africa to respond to the rising trend of violent conflicts and its attendant threats to regional security and security sector governance within the sub-region. 

Currently, the sub-region still presents singular combination of some of the poorest states in the world with widespread security challenges in the form of recurring violent conflicts (Niger, Chad, Mali, Guinea), long-standing authoritarian regimes (Gambia, Burkina Faso and Guinea) and several types of illegal activities including proliferation of small weapons (Niger, Chad, Nigeria, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone), terrorism, trafficking in persons, money laundering and drug trafficking (Nigeria, Togo, Equatorial Guinea and Mali) which thrive on the conflict situations, making it more challenging to address. As part of efforts to increase civil society involvement, oversight and monitoring of security sector governance across the sub-region; this training is developed to provide tools for monitoring and advocacy on governance of security for civil society groups and NGOs in West Africa. The training is intended to:

1. -          Increase beneficiaries’ knowledge on concepts, issues, strategies and good practices in Human Rights monitoring of security institutions, advocacy and reporting;
2. -          Enhance the depth  of their knowledge in governance, security sector reform, conflict prevention and management, demilitarization in West Africa and;
3. -          Network them with civil society actors and other strategic partners in supporting governance, security sector reform, monitoring and advocacy activities in West Africa.

Participants at the training draw from experts and civil society knowledgeable on the issues in discourse within the continent. Specifically, trainees comprise of program officers and other senior personnel from civil society groups involved in conflict management, human rights advocacy, conflicts and violence prevention, security sector governance reform and demilitarization in Africa.

At the end of the training, participants will develop action plan on how they intend to use lessons learnt at the training in their respective countries to monitor and advocate on security sector governance. 

The training and other activities under the Altus Regional Project titled “Responding to Conflicts and Security Governance in West Africa” are carried out with the funding support of Ford Foundation. 

Altus works to improve public safety, security and justice in countries around the world, bringing empirical and multi-cultural perspectives to that work and promoting greater participation of civil society in security and justice reform. Altus places emphasis on accountability of security forces in domestic and regional justice systems.

Signed

Kemi Okenyodo

Director

Altus/CLEEN Foundation

Justice for All (J4A) Donates Equipment to Voluntary Policing Sector (VPS) Groups in Niger State.

The Justice for All (J4A) programme of the Department for International Development, DFID is donating equipment to some VPS groups in Niger State under its Component Intervention Plan (CIP) that targets VPS groups. The activity, which is part of a programme aimed at improving the service delivery, accountability and management of the VPS groups, also referred to as vigilante, is being done in collaboration with CLEEN Foundation.

According to the Component Lead Consultant, Mrs. Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, over the years, the important role being played by vigilante groups in ensuring public safety and security in inner cities and rural communities which usually play host to poor and vulnerable persons, can neither be overlooked nor downplayed. Some of these groups are known to work closely with and render assistance to the Nigeria Police Force in curbing crime.

This according to her informed J4A initiating this project, which is currently being executed in 7 states across the country. The states are Lagos, Kano, Enugu, Niger, Jigawa, Kaduna and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. In each of these states, some police divisions are selected and transformed to Model Police Stations; and VPS groups working around these selected stations are identified and their capacity built. Trainings on Human Rights, Conflict Management, Basic Policing Skills and Organizational Management are organized for the VPS executives and operatives.

In Niger state, the project is targeting VPS groups in operation in Chanchaga and Bosso Local Government areas of the state. These groups have not only been trained, they have also been linked to the police divisions in charge of the areas they operate, and jointly they would be policing their communities. The equipment being donated is to assist the VPS groups in effectively carrying out their duties. The equipment include rain boots, raincoats, torch lights, arm bands, whistles, batteries etc.

The event will be taking place at Paiko Road Police Division at 11am on Thursday May 22, 2014.  Expected to be in attendance at the event, representative of Voluntary Policing Groups from Chanchaga and Bosso Local Government Areas of the State, the police, members of the community and the media.

Signed by

‘Kemi OKENYODO

Executive Director

CLEEN Foundation

Nigeria, Cameroon Emerge Top African Police Stations

CLEEN  Foundation in conjunction with the National Human Rights Commission  has released  the results for the 2013 edition of  PSVW which was conducted in  various  Police stations  in seven African countries. The countries include Republic of  Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

 

The released results show that race was keenly contested  between Karu police station in  Nigeria and the 1st District Police station in  Douala Cameroon. After a critical review of the scores by the locals and the criteria issued by Altus  Global Alliance, Karu  Police station Nigeria was declared the winner of the 2013 PSVW for Africa region. The second position went to  1st district Police station Douala Cameroon.

 

According to the Executive Director of CLEEN Foundation, Kemi Okenyodo, who spoke during the press briefing, where the results were made public, the 2013 edition of PSVW was conducted using a well designed kit developed by the, Altus  Global Alliance  based on international  standards and agreements that are relevant to policing, especially in the area of human rights and accountability. 

 

“ Basic ally, the kit  included 20 different questions addressing strategic  areas of policing in  the region ranging from community orientation, physical condition of the police station, equal treatment of public, transparency and accountability as well as condition of detention facilities” Kemi Okenyodo told news men. The PSVW is a global event that  is conducted in five continents. It involves scoring of different Police stations by community locals using the kits developed by Altus Global alliance. It was initiated in the year 2006 and has been conducted every year since then.

 

 

Signed.

 

Oluwakemi Okenyodo

Executive Director

CLEEN Foundation

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For further details and interviews:

 

234 - 9 -7817025

asiwaju@cleen.org