The Rwanda National Police has spelled-out priorities as an institution, with training of its Force among the key aspects so they can ably confront the emerging security threats, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) has said.

IGP Emmanuel K Gasana was speaking while opening the fourth United Nations Police Officers Course that will run for two weeks at Gishari Police Training School in Rwamagana District, yesterday.

The course has attracted 60 officers from Uganda, Kenya, Comoros, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Denmark and hosts Rwanda.

The Eastern African Standby Force (EASF) is conducting United Nations Police Officers’ Course to prepare for the Police standby force for the African Union mandated peacekeeping operations.

"Peacekeepers must be well trained to enhance their capabilities in dealing with mission situations in various forms,” Gasana said.

"Rwanda has been identified as a regional centre for training in the EAPCCO region, although we alsp train officers from across the continent. Such a course enables our schools to gain more experience in conducting and organising such trainings,” the Police chief added.

The course is aimed at preparing more standby police force for deployment in Eastern African Standby Force mandated missions as well as consolidating of the recently achieved full operational capability.

According to the IGP, Rwanda has been and continues to contribute to international military, police and civilian components of peacekeeping force.

"We have since become serious partners and are now ranked the fifth largest contributor in peace support operations engagements. We are in eight UN missions across the globe,” Gasana, who disclosed that RNP was generating a women’s Formed Police Unit (FPU) making it the sixth FPU to the UN, said. 

"This is a strong commitment Rwanda has made toward peace and security in the world,” he said.

Impact of cooperation

The course was organised by EASF in partnership with British Peace Support Team (BPST).

The UK High Commissioner to Rwanda, William Gelling, said the course goes to show what is possible when police forces from across the region and the world work together.

"It also goes to show Rwanda’s growing role as a regional hub for this kind of work,” Gelling said.

He said UK believed firmly in the necessity of peacekeeping, to prevent the world’s most difficult or intractable conflicts from worsening, and to ensure that fragile situations do not turn disastrous.

"I commend Rwanda National Police for hosting the course. I congratulate the attendees and thank respective countries and organisations for having nominated you as trainers or trainees to participate in the recent three-day trainers workshop and the two weeks of training starting today,” he said.

Gelling said the UK is committed to supporting AU AMISOM Individual Police Officers and Force Protection Unit training and capacity building.

"Our aim is to ensure that participants are trained in UN mission specific and mandate requirements, and to enable participants to have greater impact and more successful missions on peacekeeping duties,” he said.

The course that the officers are undertaking will cover the background of UN and AU, the dynamics of peacekeeping operations, expected conduct and discipline of peacekeepers, challenges in missions and techniques of overcoming them, skills, knowledge and attitude mandatory for officers in a peacekeeping mission, among others.

Speaking on behalf of EASF, Finn-Torre Peterson said the course is one of the last EASF Police activities of 2015.

"The recently achieved Full Operation Capability (FOC), which is the EASF capability to deploy in a conflict situation, faces challenges of maintaining and consolidating demands,” said Peterson, adding that the training is one of the answers to these challenges.

"The demands of FOC range from logistical aspects and internal politics in the affected state, to over-reliance on external partners.”