Kapalata, 18 February 2010 - On February 16, 2010, some 600 Congolese National Police (PNC) officers, including 30 women, began a training session at the newly rehabilitated Kapalata training centre, located a few kilometres from Kisangani, in Oriental Province.
The one-month session is part of a large-scale training for 6200 police personnel in four provinces. The first series of sessions under the programme were launched on November 9, 2010, at the centres of Kasangulu (Bas Congo province) and Mbankana, located 150 km east of Kinshasa. The last session is due to start on February 23, 2010, in Goma (North Kivu province).The programme, which is funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), also seeks to rehabilitate three training centres for the PNC. After the rehabilitation of the training centres of Kasangulu and Mbankana last November, the Kapalata centre now came to open its doors.
Reforming the PNC, under the aegis of the Steering Committee on Police Reform, is one of the priority axes within the context of the Security Sector Reform. Restoring the primacy of the Congolese police force is also one of the essential aspects of the Government's Stabilization and Reconstruction Plan for War Affected Areas (STAREC), launched in June 2009.
For this training programme, MONUC has developed training modules and provided specialised trainers to support and advise PNC trainers. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has taken charge of the financial and logistical aspects of the programme management (transport, lodging, food, and training equipment and materials) while other United Nations agencies are involved in providing specialised training modules for human rights, sexual violence, protection of minors and women and displaced people.
The Congolese Government through the directorate of the PNC, assisted by MONUC Police, had initially identified the training needs, provided the orientation guidelines and identified the personnel to be trained. It had also identified the training subjects and the localities that would benefit from the programme. "We have UN trainers. We want the Democratic Republic of Congo's police force to be free of corruption. Corruption-free, disciplined, modernised and equipped (...) so as to better protect the people and their property," said one of the programme beneficiaries.
Following an order of PNC's Inspector General, the trainees are required to live together in isolation throughout the training period, in order to promote group cohesion and team spirit among them.