By Olimatou Coker
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in collaboration with the Office of National Security (ONS), on Tuesday launched a 15-day community outreach campaign across various regions of the country to raise awareness and deepen public understanding of the country’s security sector reform (SSR).
The initiative was officially launched at an event held in Kerewan North Bank Region, bringing together key stakeholders, community leaders, and security representatives. It is designed to strengthen trust and cooperation between citizens and security institutions by engaging communities in dialogue and information-sharing activities.
Thomas Kimaru, UNDP Project Manager said this community engagement campaign reflects a fundamental principle, adding that security is most effective when it is understood, trusted, and co-owned by the communities it serves.
“Today’s initiative builds on the strong partnership between UNDP, OHCHR, the Government of The Gambia, and key stakeholders, particularly the Office of National Security, in implementing the SSR Strategy. The SSR programme is already contributing to strengthening institutional capacity, enhancing accountability mechanisms, and promoting human rights-based approaches within the security sector” Mr Kimaru explained.
He added that this campaign is therefore critical as it brings the SSR agenda closer to the people ensuring that complex reform processes are translated into accessible, relatable, and actionable information as well as promoting inclusion and strengthening trust between communities and security institutions.
Abdoulie Sawo, Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the National Security Office, said since 2017 Gambia has made significant strides in transitioning towards democratic governance, with security sector governance and reform at the core of this transformation, guided by key frameworks including the national security policy, national Security Strategy, security sector reform strategy and the National Security Council Act.
“The government remains committed to building a professional, accountable and people centered security sector. However, while significant progress has been made, challenges still remain, public understanding of security sector governance and reform remains limited, and many communities and groups, particularly those in the rural areas, have limited opportunities to engage meaningfully in the security sector governance and reform process. This has implications for cross participation and the overall success of the reform process, it is in response to these challenges that the office of national security, in partnership with UNDP and OHCHR and the civil society coalition And SSR, is implementing this nationwide outreach and awareness initiative,” Saho said.
He added that this community outreach aims to bring security sector governance and reform further to the people by enhancing public understanding of the ssr strategy and the National Security Council outcomes, while also spending in the capacity of community based structures to engage in dialogue and collaboration with security institutions.
Lamin Saidy, representative of the Governor of North Bank Region, described security as a very important national endeavor.
He observed; “When you look at the Sahel west Africa today they are crying because of how the security issues are, but for us in the Gambia here since the change of government in 2016 the government have taken a lot of steps which the ssr is part, public service and many other changes that the government is doing”.
