Heads of Police component from various peacekeeping missions in Africa have said that coming together every year provides a better chance to share best practices and to address major challenges faced in their respective missions.
Their comments came on the heels of the fourth intermission retreat of top UN Police officials, which ended Friday at the Rwanda National Police (RNP) General Headquarters in Kacyiru.
The three-day intermission retreat, the second to be held in Rwanda, brought together Police Commissioners and top officials from UNMISS (South Sudan), MONUSCO (Democratic Republic of Congo), UNISFA (Abyei), UNAMID (Darfur), AMISOM and UNSOM (both from Somalia) as well as the UN headquarters and UN Office to the African Union, among others.
UNMISS Police Commissioner, Unaisi Lutu Vuniwaqa, said: "The last three days have been very constructive; the retreat was well organised and it addressed specific challenges at hand, we shared lessons and best practices. This will help us when we go back to strategize our mission implementations.”
"We have challenges related to recruitment and partnership and we learnt better ways from other missions that are doing better, which will also help us to accomplish our mission mandate in South Sudan,” she added.
Rwanda maintains three Formed Police Unit (FPU) contingents of 560 officers under the UN Mission in South Sudan, including a female dominated contingent under the command of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Teddy Ruyenzi.
Her counterpart from the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO), Abdounasir Awale of Djibouti, said that this was a "very good opportunity for us all to share best practices and to have a similar understanding of the UN Police mandate.”
"We learnt from each other on how to deal with varied challenges we face in our respective missions, and we can say we exchanged and learnt a lot; we have a general issue on recruitment, implementation of mandate, gender issues and this is one of the challenges we are trying to address,” Awale said.
They discussed key issues related to the implementation of the Action for Peacekeeping (A4P); enhancing performance; protection of civilians and capacity building; mission challenges; and women, peace and security.
Among the resolutions adopted at the end of the retreat include inclusion of women in senior positions and developing early strategies for the transition and exit period.
The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 calls for participation and increase of women in peacekeeping and peace processes.
The UN Police Advisor, Luis Carrilho emphasized "positioning and centering their activities on the people, helping to build national police institutions and promoting sustainable development goals.”
"Let us bring our expertise together to change and improve the lives of the people, ensure peace and security, and build strong Police institutions,” Carrilho said.
Commissioner of Police Bruce Munyambo said RNP remains committed to the national policy on international peace.
The UN ranks Rwanda the second Police contributing country and first contributor of female peacekeepers.
editor@newtimesrwanda.com