Projects

Security forces capacity building programme

Atelier de formation - Abidjan

Durée du projet : 2012 - 2015

Since 2012 and the end of the crisis that hit the country, the Ivorian government has been committed to a process of reforms affecting different spheres of public life. For example, it has undertaken a review of the structure of training courses in police and gendarmerie academies to improve the protection of civilian populations, especially children. In partnership with the IBCR, and with the technical and financial support of UNICEF, the government of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire has begun working toward the integration of a permanent and compulsory course on child rights and protection into the training given to security forces. 

Our goals :

The goal of this project was to support the Ivorian government in the permanent and compulsory integration of a training programme on child rights and protection into the country’s police and gendarme tranining schools.  

This three-year project began with a literature review so that a mapping report could be produced on the training of security forces in Côte d’Ivoire.

As a result of this preparatory work, the first continued training toolkit, equivalent to 40 hours of instruction, was developed and then tested on gendarmes and police officers already working in the field. The proposed training was unique in that it adopted a teaching approach based on participatory techniques that was tailored to local contexts and encouraged the development of six core competencies previously validated by the project’s principal actors.

Training for trainers was provided in December 2012 to ensure the dissemination of the continued training in all regions of the country in the later phases of the project. Some 30 individuals from the police academy and gendarmerie academies targeted by the project took part in this first series of courses, which enabled them to then train others in child rights and protection.

Furthermore, new educational tools adapted to the country’s context were made available to schools, which now offer specialised courses in children’s rights.

In the final phase of the project, initiated in 2014, IBCR representatives on missions in the field monitored three pilot courses during which a total of four police officers and 11 gendarmes facilitated sessions on children’s rights for 65 police commissioners and 150 gendarmes in training. That same year, a report on the lessons learned from the Ivorian experience was drafted following the compilation of some 30 questionnaires submitted at the end of the project. These questionnaires collected participants’ perspectives on the successes and weaknesses of the project.