Ghana Police Service builds capacity of trainers on community policing

The Ghana Police Service is taking further steps to make communities safe and increase the quality of life for residents, by strengthening their community policing.

Based on a country-specific strategy, the Police developed a training course for its officers. Speaking at the workshop, the Director-General of the National Patrol Department highlighted that “Community policing shall become a general approach to policing in Ghana that builds safe, secure and peaceful communities through partnership with members of the community and all other stakeholders”.

In a week-long workshop held in Accra from 28 February to 4 March, 20 trainers from across Police Training Schools and the Community Policing Directorate, deepened their knowledge on the philosophy of community policing, as well as its roots and practices in Ghana. Further, the training, led by an international expert and co-facilitated by the Director of the Community Policing Directorate ACP Rev. Mrs. Laurencia Wilhelmina Akorli, covered new approaches to enhance police visibility and foster a trustworthy relationship between the police and the citizens of this country.

Aside from the training content, which was developed in line with the Enhanced Visibility and Community Policing Strategy of the GPS, trainers were introduced to various training methods to help them in the re-training of police personnel. In the next step, the equipped trainers will train District Commanders and heads of zonal community policing teams from Tema and Accra.

The Programme to Build and Strengthen the Police Structures in Selected Partner Countries in Africa (Police Programme), funded by the German Federal Foreign Office and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, supports the Ghana Police Service in finding suitable solutions to strengthen their community policing approach by developing a country-specific strategy, the corresponding training course, as well as information material for police officers and citizens.

During the closing ceremony, the Manager of the Police Programme in Ghana, Mr. Philipp Niehenke, stated, “I am impressed by the commitment of the National Patrol Department to mainstream community policing and increase visibility. They, together with the newly trained trainers, are now the Ambassadors for community policing within the Ghana Police Service.”