Strategic Guidance Framework for International Police Peacekeeping
The scale and scope of United Nations police peacekeeping has grown exponentially in the past decade, with close to 14,000 police currently deployed in 17 United Nations peace missions. Once tasked to merely monitor and report, police peacekeepers are now problem-solvers and mentors. They often substitute for local police or build whole organizations from the ground up. On any given day, they are protecting civilians from harm; helping to secure elections; investigating incidents of sexual and gender-based violence; or fighting transnational organised crime and violent extremism alongside their host-state counterparts.
In addition to these challenging tasks, United Nations Police officers work in unfamiliar environments and navigate among policing approaches of colleagues from about 90 different countries. This expansion of demands requires enhanced strategic thinking and more sophisticated understanding of how to perform these new and emerging tasks. The need for this has been reinforced by the United Nations Secretary-General in his report on United Nations police (2011) and by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 2185 (2014).
Since 2009, the United Nations Police Division has been working on the development of a set of policies, associated guidelines and detailed manuals that provide a cohesive and coherent framework for United Nations Police. They are collectively referred to as the Strategic Guidance Framework for International Police Peacekeeping (SGF) .
The SGF consists of the Policy on United Nations Police in Peacekeeping Operations and Special Political Missions, four guidelines on capacity-building and development, police command, police operations and administration as well as detailed manuals and training documents. Once completed, the framework will assist United Nations police in developing specialised job descriptions and in recruiting the right type of personnel for field missions. It will considerably enhance training before deployment and while in-mission. It will also provide police-contributing countries with a clearer picture of what will be expected of their officers in the field and the skillsets needed for them to succeed.
The SGF aim is to provide the guidance for a police component in a multilateral peace operation to play its part in an integrated approach to conflict management and sustainable peacebuilding. This role is expected to increase for the United Nations police in the future in light of the Global Focal Point arrangement between the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and United Nations Development Programme in the Police, Justice and Corrections Areas in the Rule of Law in Post-conflict and Other Crisis Situations.
