The mandate of a Tripartite police programme between Swedish, South African and Rwandan police services aimed strengthening the capacity and quality of Rwanda National Police has been extended with a new mandate of three years.

Rwanda National Police (RNP), Swedish Police Service and South African Police Service have been working side by side since 2005 in several capacity building operations and quality service to the community to help improve efficiency.

"The programme’s first phase is funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and  had a mandate of three years that are expected to end mid this year. They have agreed to fund the next phase of three years.”

Superintendent Jimmy Hodali, the Director of Projects in RNP  told The New Times after the Tripartite meeting held in Kigali yesterday.

The funding of the first phase was about US$4m (Approx. Rwf 2.2b).

Hodali added that many police officers that have been trained under this programme can compete on the international level and that the programme has helped RNP come up with a striking standard strategic plan of five years.

"In 2003, we (RNP) opted to have a partnership with Swedish Police and later on Sweden decided to have South Africa on board as an African country that has a similar police body like Rwanda, and that is how the tripartite was formed,” said the acting Commissioner General of Police, Mary Gahonzire in a separate interview.

According to her, the programme was renewed in 2005 with five objectives that include criminal investigations, community policing, accountability, training, women’s empowerment and management.

Cooperation between the three police forces is dubbed "programme for democratic policing project.”

Despite the success of the programme, officials say that it still faces some challenges like the availability of trainers since they are active policemen in their police services.

Many Rwandan police official have benefited from the programmes, especially women, and according to Gahonzire, this has almost doubled the number of women in the police force.

Many believe the tripartite police programme can be used as a model for future tripartite cooperation with other countries.

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