Enabling Community-Oriented Policing in Senegal

archived

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 Senegalese 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, gendarmerie, and a local force known in French as the Agence de Securité de Proximité (ASP), in Senegal make progress towards the goal of institutionalizing community-oriented policing. The program will focus solely on Senegal 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.

High