ABSTRACT
African police have received external training and equipment programmes for a long time, but only since the late 1990s, there has been a concerted effort by donors to radically reconstruct the national police and security systems in order to improve the effectiveness and quality of their service. The police are the gatekeepers of the criminal justice system for many people in developing countries, and often the justice or security institution that most impacts on their everyday lives. Police reform invariably adopts a community-orientated approach that seeks to empower local people regarding their own security within a police-community partnership. A very different form of policing and police organisation was required for delivering that element of human security known as personal or citizen security; that is, security from violence, crime and disorder. According to the United Nations Development Programme, the main objective of security sector reform is to bring the security agencies into line with the human security agenda.
