Features

May 7, 2008

Burundi: Professionalizing Police

More than seven years after the signing of the Arusha Peace Accords, the Burundi police does not meet expectations because its personnel is not integrated and it lacks effective accountability mechanisms.

The National Police of Burundi (NPB) accepted personnel from various armed groups that signed the Arusha Peace Accords or subsequent agreements, resulting in a growth to a 20,000-member force from the original 2,000-member force since 2000. The Burundi Government is not in a position to know the exact number or identities of all officers and does not fully control all police personnel. Burundians cannot know for certain who is a police officer and who is not.

The ICTJ is assisting the NPB, with funding from The Netherlands and support from the UNDP, to identify all NPB personnel and bolster public confidence through the National Police of Burundi Census and Identification Program (PRIP). Over the course of one year, ICTJ staff will support 10 NPB operational teams to prepare and conduct a census of all police officers at 161 registration sites. The program will eventually issue identification cards to all police personnel. The program will also include a sensitization campaign to inform the population about the process and its objectives, in particular the new identification cards that all police officers will be obliged to carry. The PRIP will allow the NPB leadership to hold its personnel to account and the public to identify all police officers.

"We expect that this census and identification program will bring forth a reliable management of human and material resources, an improvement in the relations between the population and the Police force," said Minister for Public Security and Police Commissioner M. Alain Guillaume Bunyoni at the program's launch in Bujumbura.

The PRIP, launched in early April, will operate for one year.

Learn more about the ICTJ in Burundi and our Security System Reform Program