UN Police

«The role of UN Police continues to evolve, with an increasing demand for specialized capacities to fulfill mandates to protect civilians, as well as to create or strengthen national capacity to address challenges, particularly those related to community-oriented policing, transnational organized crime and border management. Support for national police development is often central to our ability to hand over security tasks to national authorities.»

Hervé Ladsous
Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations

Policy on United Nations Police in Peacekeeping Operations and Special Political Missions

The first output of the Strategic Guidance Framework for International Police Peacekeeping (SGF), the DPKO/DFS Policy on United Nations Police in Peacekeeping Operations and Special Political Missions, went into effect in February 2014. For the first time in the history of United Nations police peacekeeping, the mission of the United Nations police and what core functions and organizational structure should comprise police peacekeeping have been defined.

With the ‘what’ of UN police peacekeeping defined in the form of the Policy, the next step was to define the ‘how’. The four guidelines as outlined in the Policy are:

• Police Administration: the administrative systems, including budget management, procurement, record-keeping and personnel management, needed for effective and efficient performance of the police component
• Police Capacity-Building and Development: how to best prepare officers and host-state institutions to ensure the long-term sustainability of international peace efforts
• Police Command: the resources, skills, capabilities and structures required to lead a complex, multidimensional peace operation
• Police Operations: day-to-day police work, applying the basic principles of community-oriented and intelligence-led policing to carry out investigations, provide public safety and conduct special operations

The guidelines on police administration are the final element, to be finalised in 2016. Additional guidance and training materials on specific subtopics identified by police professionals in the field is being developed.

While adopted for the use of United Nations police, the Policy and all related guidance materials are intended to benefit any organisation or Member State which deploys police and law enforcement personnel to international, multidimensional peace operations.