ABSTRACT
Trust, legitimacy and civilian accountability are widely considered to be key features of the style of community policing advocated by donors. At first glance, the connection between information and communications technology (ICT) and police-community engagement in Africa is tenuous. Knowledge about the potential connections between ICT and improved police-community engagement in Africa remains thin and heavily dependent on developments in Kenya, which is widely regarded as a beacon for the application of ICT to police-related issues. A more plausible form of ICT for policing and security-related purposes in Somalia is the crisis hotline. Closed-circuit television (CCTV) is another form of ICT much favoured for crime prevention in the Global North, and is now in use in Mogadishu. CCTV cameras are too vulnerable to be much more than a gesture in a city such as Mogadishu, and their usefulness is limited by the challenges of coordinating, consolidating and implementing the results.
