Over forty Police officers, on Monday June 12, started a pre-deployment training for Individual Police Officers (IPO) at the Police Training School (PTS) Gishari in Rwamagana District.
The two-week peacekeeping course is conducted by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in partnership with Rwanda National Police (RNP).
It seeks to align the officers with the UN peacekeeping standards such as command, administration, human rights due diligence policy, community oriented policing, and capacity development.
Others include monitoring, mentoring and advising, protection of civilians, use of force and firearms as well as arrest and detention in peacekeeping operations.
The commandant of PTS, Commissioner of Police (CP) Robert Niyonshuti, while opening the course, said that Rwanda National Police has put training at the forefront to address challenges in policing both in and out the country in peace support operations.
“Without effective training of police officers, we can’t achieve our best performance and we cannot manage to effectively serve the community, which is the mission of Rwanda National Police,” CP Niyonshuti said.
He appreciated the existing partnership between the RNP and UNITAR in enhancing the skills, knowledge and attitude of police officers in peacekeeping and other policing fields.
“Police officers to be deployed for peacekeeping operations must be trained to enable them to understand and manage mission challenges.
This course prepares professional police officers into competent peacekeepers,” said the commandant. (End)