KAIPTC’s Women, Peace and Security Institute supports the Ghana Police Service with a Gender Policy

Accra: As part of efforts to enhance policing in Ghana, the Women, Peace and Security Institute (WPSI) of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) has been engaged by the Accountability Rule of Law and Anticorruption Programme (ARAP), a European Union funded programme in Ghana, to assist in the development a Gender Policy for the Ghana Police Service.

The development of the Gender Policy forms part of a new strategic programme dubbed ‘Police Transformation Agenda,’ which aims at enhancing the image of the Ghana Police Service as a gender-sensitive security institution. Further, it is to boost gender sensitive monitoring and evaluation of the Police Service’s achievements and results in line with the Transformation Agenda. The policy will seek to mainstream gender perspectives into policies, training courses and programmes to address inequalities and integrate gender perspectives into the organisational culture of the Police Service.

A team from the KAIPTC undertook a two-week engagement with the GPS across nine Regional Police Headquarters to gather data for the formulation of the Policy. This engagement was preceded by a desk review of existing documents, reports, training manuals and policies in the Police Service.

It is envisaged that the Gender Policy will be utilised by the police administration to integrate gender perspective into its operations which willstrengthen professionalism, enhance internal control mechanisms and improve its complaints management systems.