Consolidation of capacity strengthening of prisons and police training institutions

Sector

Justice, Law and Order Sector

Project budget

The maximum budget for this project is € 3 million.

Organisations

This project has been developed by the Uganda Prisons Service and the Uganda Police Force. The tender for this project expired on 14 July 2011.

Nuffic has awarded this tender to University of Applied Sciences Leiden (UAS Leiden), which has formed a consortium with the Center for International Legal Cooperation (CILC), the Uganda Management Institute (UMI) and the University of South Africa (UNISA).

Project description

Uganda's Justice, Law and Order Sector (JLOS) is facing major challenges, including increasing crime rates and poor access to justice. Uganda Prisons Service (UPS) and Uganda Police Force (UPF) can play a key role in tackling these challenges.

Although their training schools have the required basic capacity, infrastructure and skills, there is a lack of capacity due to:

• a growing population;
• a rise in crime;
• more complex crime patterns;
• a rising prison population.

Current training capacity is insufficient to ensure ongoing staff development and training in emerging areas. Both UPS and UPF are unable to attract high-calibre recruits and need more skilled trainers.

In a previous capacity building project, under the NPT programme, the two schools were given the chance to carry out a number of reforms, including developing strategic plans, introducing Competence Based Learning (CBL), offering staff training and curricula development.

The key challenge, however, remains the lack of organisational support, combined with a lack of resources which means the reforms have not yet been fully implemented or approved.

Objectives

This new project intends to continue the reform process and tackle the abovementioned challenges. The overall objective is to consolidate the capacity strengthening of the schools by:

• strengthening their organisational and training policies.
• enhancing staff capacity for training, research and management of the training function.
• developing identified curriculum and training materials and pilot their usage.
• making them eligible for accreditation.
• strengthening cooperation with other schools at the national and international level.

Finally, the project also aims to improve the gender ratio of trainers in the schools and integrate gender issues into the curriculum, while improving the quality and labour market relevance of the training on offer.