Norway

In his implementation report, and following the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) report of 2015, the UN Secretary-General “instructed the Police Division to undertake an external review of functions, structure and capacity, and to present results in my forthcoming report on UN policing.”

The independent review of the Police Division should focus on the Headquarters functions needed to implement the SGF, as well as departmental priorities, and, on that basis, assess how the Police Division should be structured and staffed in order to deliver those functions.

DPKO is requesting ISSAT to participate in and provide secretariat support to the work of the panel undertaking the independent review.

The training will bring together approximately 40-45 participants representing the Norwegian criminal justice chain, as well as new and experienced experts, including police officers. Participants and speakers from other Norwegian agencies and ministries such as the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs will also be invited.

The primary focus of the training will be the criminal justice chain, including police and justice reform and their linkages to other processes. Key topics covered during this training will include the fundamentals of the Justice and Security Sector Reform (JSSR), the adoption of a gender-sensitive approach to JSSR, JSSR programming and effective advising.

Concrete case studies and interactive co-learning methodologies that encourage participants to share their own experiences will be used throughout the course.

Whilst many countries have designed and delivered specific training programs to prepare police officers for participation in peacekeeping missions, there are far fewer opportunities to prepare police experts to act as advisors and mentors to reform initiatives in post-conflict and transitional, organisational development contexts. A good advisor/expert requires a different set of skills, attitude and level of knowledge from those needed for traditional and narrowly defined peacekeeping deployments.

The National Police of the Netherlands, together with DCAF/ISSAT took the initiative to further explore this need in 2011 via their partnership with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office and College of Policing and the Norwegian Police University College. The Australian Federal Police supported the initiative from the start by sending participants and became full managing partners in 2014.

To date 84 delegates from 9 different countries have participated in a Masterclass. Evaluation showed them to have been very successful and alumni of this pilot programme have already made important career moves following the Masterclass. 

There is significant ownership by the five policing organisations, who have taken over the roll-out of the course for the long-term. The modules developed will also assist ISSAT in the inclusion of more police reform modules/examples into its Level 2 Advanced SSR training course.

The 3-day training will focus on the fundamentals of SSR including key characteristics, actors and the international policy framework. It will also focus on SSR in post-conflict contexts and linkages with peace support operations. Cross-cutting issues such as gender, governance and coordination will also be addressed. 

The Norwegian Mission of Rule of Law Advisers to Moldova (NORLAM) was established in March 2007 and is planned to terminate in 2016. This is a bilateral cooperation project between Moldova and Norway. The overall objective of the cooperation is promoting good governance, strengthening the rule of law and promoting human rights in Moldova. Furthermore, the program should work in line with the European Integration Process of Moldova and support the aims of the EU-Moldova Action Plan (Strategy for Justice Sector Reform 2011- 2016), as well as strengthening bilateral cooperation between Moldova and Norway.

NORLAM`s  activities in Moldova are based on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) from 2007. Details of the agreement are as follows:

• Competence-building within the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the judicial system, the General Prosecutor`s office and the legal profession,
• with the aim of increasing the efficiency of the institutions guaranteeing human rights and the rule of law in the Republic of Moldova in line with Moldova`s European objectives and commitments.

ISSAT completed a review of NORLAM in August 2014 to provide guidance as to whether the program should continue beyond 2016, and if so, what should be the scope of the work and how should it be organized in the future.

The Norwegian MoJ and the Norwegian MFA is in the process to consider an extension of NORLAM beyond 2016, in light of the ISSAT report.

In this respect NORLAM and the MoJ organizes a seminar in Chisinau Wednesday 4th of March 2015 to discuss NORLAM’s further contributions to justice sector reform in the light of Moldova's needs and other providers of justice assistance.