INL Sahel Capacity Building Support

The complex security environment in the Sahel poses unique challenges that criminal justice sector actors are struggling to navigate. Although the threats confronting countries in the Sahel vary, their strategic, operational, and even tactical challenges share important commonalities. To support the region’s criminal justice sector actors mitigate threats arising from transnational organized crime, terrorist networks and armed conflict, the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) has partnered with the Strategic Capacity Group (SCG) to launch a comprehensive capacity building program for five Sahelian countries—Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal.

SCG is partnering both with INL to advance the efficiency, effectiveness, and impact of its capacity-building efforts in the Sahel and with local partners to deepen their institutional capacity and advance security sector reform. Providing equal parts logistics and training support, SCG supports INL in the design, implementation, and evaluation of its initiatives. Through these initiatives, SCG is empowering local partners with knowledge and skills. Both partnerships aim to achieve the long term goal of creating a living network of criminal justice sector change agents dedicated to knowledge sharing and collaborative problem solving. Working directly with law enforcement, corrections administrations, ministry officials, and civil society leaders in these countries, SCG is delivering capacity building programs to empower these states to deliver civilian security appropriately, effectively, accountably, and in accordance with the rule of law.

Strategic Capacity Group (SCG) is a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing the ability of the United States and its partners to build strategic security sector capacity both at home and abroad. SCG assists donor and recipient governments to assess institutional capacity, identify gaps, develop and implement solutions, and improve the sustainability and impact of reform.

SCG’s Security Sector Reform Program aims to build human and institutional capacity for effective and accountable security sector forces and institutions. SCG’s work is conducted through:

• Sharing security sector best practices through national and regional SSR platforms and networks that convene security sector stakeholders and empower “change agents” at key institutions across governments, connecting them with like-minded counterparts;
• Producing assessments of security sector capacity, identifying gaps, and developing strategic policy and programmatic recommendations;
• Training and educating donors to design and implement SSR programs and local stakeholders to design, implement, and advocate for reform within their governments; and
• Advising governments and donor organizations to conceptualize SSR programs and build capacity to implement them.