Commandants of Police colleges, academies and schools in Eastern Africa, have established a new network that is expected to come up with mechanisms of harmonising police training modules as means to jointly counter contemporary and cross border crimes.

The network was formed during their meeting in Kigali on Monday, which brought together commandants from South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Rwanda.

The meeting was held under the auspices of the Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organsation (EAPCCO), a regional body that brings together 13 countries.

It was in line with the directives of the 17th council of EAPCCO police chiefs held in Naivasha, Kenya that directed continuous skills development of law enforcement agencies for effective policing.

While presiding over the meeting, the Inspector General of Rwanda National Police, Emmanuel K. Gasana noted that the contemporary crime trend should match with training offered.

"We need to move away from the traditional trainings and align it with currently policing demands. Today, criminals are using asymmetrical available tools to destabilise our nations. Therefore, the responses, prevention and approaches that we have to apply should match with the new trends,” said Gasana.

To fix the gaps in career training, he said, there is need to hamonise and standardise policing activities.

"EAPCCO recommended that each member state establishes a cyber crime unit – this is very important since that unit will support scientific evidence when it comes to investigations. There are many crimes that are connected to cyber, starting from human trafficking, money laundering and terrorism. This means we should have advanced training in computer skills,” IGP Gasana said.

The formed network will be endorsed by the council of EAPCCO Police Chief in their upcoming general assembly to be held in Tanzania later this year.

"This kind of association that is about to be established will be framework to address issues of the changing times and facilitate understanding of the required modern equipment, the skills required so that we are ready to confront the security challenges,” he said.

In an interview, Judy Jebet Lamet, the Commandant of CID training school in Kenya, she pointed out that the region is experiencing sophisticated crimes that cannot be addressed independently, but rather collectively.

"We have crimes that are crosscutting, there is massive use of internet so people are able to communicate to perpetrate crimes, spread hate speeches, commit gross financial crimes, human trafficking, narcotics and terrorism; we need to have a uniform and modern approach to combat these crimes,” she said.

From this new mechanism, she said, they will be able to tap from each country’s best practices and be able to work out a strong harmonised strategy.