EUPOL’s Project Phoenix concludes with positive outcomes amid challenges Kabul, November 2014. “It has been a huge privilege for us to work together with so many dedicated and promising police officers. We are happy to say that we have achieved the goals of the project,” said Deputy Head of Mission Pia Stjernvall in the closing ceremony of Project Phoenix in Kabul. The ambitious 18-month programme delivered civilian and community policing principles to the Police Districts (PDs) in Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif and Herat. The project involved a three-month engagement period of intensive mentoring and training within most PDs in Kabul as well as in Herat and Mazar-e Sharif. EUPOL experts from the field offices, CID, Intelligence-led policing and police command and control, worked alongside Afghan police commanders assessing the capability and effectiveness of the PD’s, and identifying solutions. Several PD commanders have assured EUPOL that they have seen a change in the behaviour of their officers after the implementation of Project Phoenix. Especially, but not exclusively, at the checkpoints and during their patrol activities. They have also seen clear signs of the raised awareness of community policing principals, the role of the police in the service of the community and the need to establish a trusted connection with citizens. When listening to the PD commanders involved in the project, it’s fair to predict that Project Phoenix has supported the ANP to grow stronger in a number of areas of policing such as patrol, community engagement and school outreach. With such a promising result it’s important to go on because there certainly is still work to do. “I appreciate EUPOL’s support in terms of the implementation of Project Phoenix. For us this is not the end of the project, we should make our involvement stronger within the community. The attacks have increased in Kabul recently and our main task is to coordinate everything with other security organisations in order to reach our ultimate goal,” said Brigadier General Najibullah Samsour, the Chief of Police for PD 10 in Kabul. Also, the EUPOL Police Expert in Community Policing Zvonimir Pongrac, who worked on Project Phoenix, mentioned that enhancing cooperation between the Ministry of Interior (MoI), Kabul City Police (KCP) and the PDs would help the implementation of the principals of Project Phoenix: “At a local PD level, it is difficult to incorporate some of the Project Phoenix activities, especially those related to Anti-Corruption, Police-Prosecutor Cooperation, crime recording and other issues such as detention facilities, without adequate resourses from KCP or the MoI.” Different sectors of policing are not isolated and development in one sector can effect other sectors too. Colonel Ahmadzai, Head of Training and Education at Balkh Province Police Command, is convinced that there is a connection between community policing and intelligence-led policing: “We need professional, well educated police officers in Afghanistan. We started Police-e Mardume (Community Policing) two years ago in Mazar-e Sharif. We have reached most of our goals, except implementing community policing all over the province. As soon as we reach our community policing goal, we will be successful in intelligence-led policing activities as well.” David Oram, the EUPOL Head of Kabul Field Office who was leading Project Phoenix is satisfied with the results achieved in Kabul. “I am delighted that Project Phoenix has reached a successful conclusion and it is a testament to the handwork and resilience of all of the Field Office teams in innovating policing and rule of law solutions in challenging conditions. I would pay tribute to the work of Jaring Kloosterman and Ian Groom who amongst others, played an instrumental role in the project co-ordination in Kabul.” Looking to the future, the EUPOL mentors have advised the Afghan police to introduce the five ‘POWER’ principles: Professionalism, Operations, Workforce Development, Engagement with the community and Reporting. “We have now set a road-map with our Afghan colleagues in order to improve their professional skills in CID, Intelligence-Led Policing and Community Policing. We continue to look forward to working with our senior ANP counterparts at the strategic level over the next two years”, said Simon O’connor, EUPOL Chief of Afghan Uniformed Civilian Police (AUCP), Community Policing Department.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 11:11:34 +0000
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