Police Planning During COVID-19 Pandemic

Dear colleagues, partners, and peace and security experts,

Thank you for joining the webinar on “Police Planning During COVID-19 Pandemic” co-hosted by the UNDP and UN POLICE on 19 May 2020. Joined by over 240 community security and rule of law practitioners, the webinar offered an opportunity to overview the key elements of the joint guidance note on Police Planning during COVID-19 Pandemic, outlined some of the challenges to effective response and set out innovative and integrated solutions to address the local security needs amidst COVID-19 prevention, response and recovery. 

As a follow up from discussion, we are pleased to share with you the recording, PPT and a list of resources referenced throughout the discussion in the attached.

In the discussion moderated by Katy Thompson, UNDP Head of Rule of Law, Security and Human Rights, presentations by Andrew Carpenter (Chief of Strategic Policy and Development Section at the Police Division of DPO and Sofiene Bacha (Policy Specialist at Rule of Law, Security and Human Rights Team at UNDP) reviewed principal elements of an effective police response to pandemic, followed by best-practices and lessons-learnt from United Nations Police and UNDP Country Offices.

Panelists including Major Luljeta Mehmeti from Kosovo Police, Davide Dolcezza from UNDP Yemen, Fehmi Ghadhab from UNDP Tunisia, Rustam Pulatov from UNDP Ukraine, Gladys Edegware and Naceur Thabouti from UN POL MONUSCO Democratic Republic of Congo and Olivier Dovonou from UN POL MINUSCA Central African Republic raised common issues such as the difficulty of striking balance between public health, protection, law enforcement and respect of human rights in an evolving context where the role of police in national response plans isn't always specified. Panelists also shared inspiring solutions to overcome these challenges which demonstrate potential positive impacts of effective police response in prevention, protection and building social cohesion.  

Key takeaways from discussion to note:

• Coordination with other state institutions, outreach across all criminal justice system (whole-of-government approach) and fostering partnerships with other critical infrastructure providers, agencies including the UN and with civil society are critical to managing the crisis and mitigating risks effectively.
• Clear and strategic communication (both internal and external, formal and informal) which sets out the rationale behind emergency measures and puts community safety at first is essential to ensuring cooperation and restoring public trust. 
• Recognizing that police is not panacea for all problems during a pandemic, however effective police response as a part of multi-dimensional and integrated governance response could yield to transformative results.
• In conflict and post-conflict settings, protection measures enforced at local level carry potential to be enabler of peace. (ie. Yemen, Lebanon)
• In some contexts, emergency measures are being used as a pretext to shrink democratic space and violate human rights further yielding to intensified tensions between the police and populations. UN and UNDP is providing capacity building trainings to police on human rights compliance to help address potential surge in human rights violations during State of Emergency and pandemic in line with standard operating procedures. 
• In contexts where security sector is stretched between sometimes competing local and national actors, support to community oriented police (as in the case of Lebanon and Iraq) as well as partnership with CSOs and local authorities can help contain crisis, restore citizen's confidence and strengthen community resilience.
• Unprecedented surge in gender-based violence during COVID-19 pandemic calls for urgent action and requires multi-sectoral response. There is a need to adapt referral pathways and to specify where and when police can intervene. (ie. Paraguay situation room demonstrates police's role as a justice actor taking immediate action to respond and prevent). 
• Building upon their experience during Ebola crisis, Congolese authorities' contract tracing and use of geolocation in partnership with WHO serve as an effective tool to curb the spread of the virus.
• One of the major challenges ahead will be to ensure protection of digital privacy in an ecosystem whereby digital surveillance is becoming the norm.
• This pandemic and the myriad ways in which police responds to it (ie. launching sensitive reforms) present a turning point and an opportunity for police to work better with communities and to transform perception of police with a view to 'build back better'. 
• Overall, ensuring accountability for the actions of the police during pandemic is critical and there is a strong push to incorporate security and justice considerations into governments' humanitarian response plans. This is a welcome development by some donors such as the UK, Sweden and Netherlands.

Kindly note that UNDP and UN POL offer peer to peer advisory services to support your ongoing work related to police response on the ground. If you have any questions, please feel free contact Sofiene Bacha ([email protected]) or Andrew Carpenter ([email protected]).

We look forward to future opportunities for collaboration and experience-exchange.

Kind regards,

UNDP Global Rule of Law, Security and Human Rights Team in collaboration with UN Police Division