Shaping a more secure Guinea through community policing

Five Years of the Partners for Security in Guinea project

Through its five years (2015-2020) the Partners for Security in Guinea project worked to build trust between police and citizens and reform Guinea’s security sector through community policing. It took collaboration among the Guinean government, law enforcement, community leaders, and everyday citizens and a committment from all to sharping a security sector that was more inclusive and effective as well as rights-respecting.

Take a look through the stories, videos and materials that capture some of the project’s successes, innovations, and best practices and hear from those most involved in the project about their experiences in shaping a more secure Guinea.

About the project

From 2015-2020, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs has supported PartnersGlobal and consortium members COGINTA and CECIDE in implementing the Partners for Security in Guinea project. The project’s goal was to institute community policing in Guinea and to reform the security sector by improving relationships between police and communities so they could collaboratively address shared security challenges. Learn more about the project here.

Read about the project’s best practices and impact

Guide to Best Practices on community policing in Guinea The Guide shares the innovative initiatives, tools, and best practices that contributed to the project’s success and that can inform community policing initiatives and security sector reform in other countries Read More

In Guinea, citizens become “actors in their own security” Read about this national approach to improve police effectiveness and build citizen-police trust through officer training, community-based policing, and positive community-police interactions. Read More

Cliquez pour accéder au Guide en français.

Learn about our 2019 Share Fair

Click the reports below to read about the lessons learned and successes discussed at the Partners for Security in Guinea Share Fair.

Watch our webinar and check out the presentations below

• Partners for Security in Guinea: Best Practices and Lessons Learned
• Community Policing in Guinea
• Women’s Caravans: Restoring Trust
• Police Outreach Initiative

Check out our video library

  October 16, 2020

Police Officer Ramata Mamadou Diallo grew up surrounded by insecurity, domestic violence, theft, and the marginalization of women. She understood early on that women and children suffered the most in this environment.

It is for this reason that when she got an opportunity to take a test to join the public servant corps in 2005, she requested to be assigned to the Ministry of Security and Civilian Protection. She wanted to protect and be of service to children and women who were victims of violence and contribute to peace and stability for families in her community. Three years later, in 2008, Officer Diallo formally joined the Guinea National Police.

Shortly after joining the police, Officer Diallo began advocating for greater integration of the gender dimensions in all police work, including in recruitment and training efforts. She favors using ongoing media messaging to sensitize women and youth on the role of police in securing their communities. Increasing women’s enrollment in the police is a goal of hers.

“Women’s participation in the security sector is a net positive because their service leads to trust, allows dialogue, and strengthens community policing,” says Officer Diallo.

“In all of the services where women police officers are in charge, women victims are well received, which has increased the likelihood that women victims will seek redress and protection,” she adds

Through her many training sessions in and out of Guinea, Officer Diallo has gotten a better understanding of the challenges women face, but these sessions have also strengthened her belief that progress is possible. She does caution, however, that a “greater solidarity among women is needed to succeed.”

In 2012, Officer Diallo was appointed to lead the Labé regional office of the Office of Protection of Gender, Children and Morals (known by its French acronym OPROGEM). This position, she said, allows her to realize her dream of serving and protecting women and children.

She has had many successes, but none seems to measure up to her 2015 rescue of an underage girl, straight from the hands of her kidnappers. The girl, a minor, had attempted to call her parents from a cell phone. Officer Diallo and her team used the mobile phone number to locate the victim and free her.

As part of the Partners for Security in Guinea project, Officer Diallo led multiple dialogue sessions between police, women, and youth. She visited several schools through the Police in School initiative that seeks to bridge the gap between teenagers and the police through civic education. She also contributed to the establishment of local security and violence prevention forums and trained local leaders on conflict resolution and crime prevention.

Prior to eventually retiring from Guinea’s National Police, Officer Diallo looks forward to serving at the national and international levels. She hopes her native Guinea will continue to honor a 30 percent gender recruitment quota and promote women officers to meaningful posts that will inspire the next generation of women police officers.

  October 15, 2020

Police Captain Jeanne Sagno has been with the Guinea National Police since 2008. She joined the police because she believes it serves an important role for public good—protecting people and their property, guaranteeing the security of state institutions, maintaining and restoring public order, and fighting criminality and gender-based violence.

In her more than decade-long service, two events have left an indelible mark on her: the rape of a 12-year-old girl who died from abortion complications and the case of a woman now permanently disabled from her husband’s domestic abuse. These events cemented her belief that women must be represented in the security sector in great numbers for community policing (police de proximité) to succeed. She says that because women constitute one of society’s vulnerable groups and are also victims of multiple forms of violence, they are best placed to provide actionable recommendations on how to guarantee the safety of women and their children.

As the Head of the Office of Protection of the Gender, Children and Morals (OPROGEM) Brigade at the Kaloum Police Commissariat in Conakry, Captain Sagno is doing her part. Through the Partners for Security in Guinea project, Sagno has partnered with civil society to inform women and youth of their legal rights and on how they can report violence against them to competent authorities, including the police. Her campaigning has led to higher number of reports filed as victims feel more empowered to go to the police.

Captain Sagno also serves as a Community Outreach Officer (or Policière Référente in French), a role that has taken her to many high school and university classrooms to educate students about the police. Her motto: Educate rather than punish.

She has also trained colleagues in the judicial police on conducting police searches or stops, handcuffing, and transporting suspects in ways that respect their human rights. Her training sessions have also included how to respectfully handle minors and peacefully manage protestors.

Captain Sagno looks forward to many more fruitful years serving her community, particularly women.

  October 14, 2020

Chief Police Commissioner Marie Gomez has a stellar 16-year career within the Guinean National Police. She has served as the officer in charge of law enforcement within the Judiciary Police, as the INTERPOL focal point on human trafficking, and with the police division in charge of science and technology. Over the years, she has completed training in Benin, Botswana, Burkina-Faso, Côte-d’Ivoire, Morocco, Rwanda, Togo, and Senegal.

She says her current position, however, is her most fulfilling. She serves as the Deputy Director of the Office of Protection of Gender, Children and Morals (known as its French acronym OPROGEM). In this role, she is serving some of the most vulnerable women and children in Guinea, which has been a lifelong dream of hers.

OPROGEM is tasked with combatting rape, child marriages, and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence. This is a complex and challenging mission in her native Guinea, which has the sixth highest percentage of child marriages in West and Central Africa with nearly 2 million child brides, according to United Nations Children’s Fund’s 2018 estimates. It is, however, a mission that Chief Police Commissioner Gomez fully embraces, having joined the police to serve and defend the most vulnerable. Even before enlisting in the police corps, Gomez worked with vulnerable populations. Upon retirement, she hopes to still work with women-centered civil society organizations.

Most of the police agents and officers that Gomez interacts with are men, and she says she would like to see more women join the police, particularly at the senior level. To reach this goal, Gomez supports the recruitment of women to join the police force so they can be the police leaders of tomorrow.

Chief Police Commissioner Gomez believes increasing the number of women police officers will help improve the community’s trust in the police since women enjoy the trust of many social groups. This would aid the police’s overall goal of increasing trust with the community as part of its community policing policy (locally known as Police de Proximité).

More importantly, she says that more women on the force will improve how the police addresses and works to eradicate gender-based violence.

In the future, Gomez says she looks forward to an opportunity to serve in an international peacekeeping mission and to promote women’s participation in the security sector globally, both of which would “pay it forward” in her words.