Approach
Usalama’s commitment to its community partners is to build strong community movements that will in turn play active roles in improving the quality of their safety and security. The established Usalama Community Safety Forums give groups most at risk of crime and violence a platform through which their voices would be heard and their priorities articulated. This strategy incorporates efforts to strengthen capacity of local actors in getting communities involved in safety and security interventions.
Rationale behind community & police participation
Usalama Reforms Forum acknowledges that the commencement of the National Police Service Act (2011) will herald a new beginning for Kenya’s policing landscape. It is a landscape no one, including our police chief is familiar with. Particularly at the community level, there are far reaching promises in Law that will be achieved only if communities are organized and are functionally linked with their police and other agencies in the broader governance, justice law and order sectors. The extent of reform implementation in the first five years following the commencement of the new Police Laws (2011) shall be essential in laying the foundation for efficiency, accessibility and effectiveness of the National Police Service.
The extent of community involvement will be ever far more critical. While establishing essential institutions to oversee police reform implementation is the surest way to insure the reform process and guarantee their implementation, the expected results shall not be achieved if there is no corresponding vigilance and active engagement by Kenyans. It is now appreciated that the process of getting Kenyans involved is far beyond awareness raising. It requires sustained engagement and capacity strengthening on a scale not witnessed before.
Objective
Strengthen the role of communities in public safety and security
Vision
Reformed public and private security agencies providing efficient services and accountable to the people.
Aim
Professional and accountable security institutions operating under democratic governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law
Mission
Realize effective public participation in security sector reforms and its implementation
Usalama Principles
1. Collaborative partnership
Usalama acknowledges that its goal of safe and secure communities will be achieved through its direct interventions and through interventions of other agencies and initiatives. Usalama forum therefore invests in designing and implementing shared initiatives to engage these other agencies, and where necessary, influence them to achieve leverage impacts
2. Measuring and capturing results
Usalama recognises the need to monitor results and demonstrate progress, even if incremental, and will embed systematic Monitoring and Evaluation approaches (e.g. baseline assessments, capacity assessments of local agencies and civil society), based on an understanding that different programme outputs reinforce each other
3. Evidence based and strategy driven
Usalama interventions are shaped by a deep awareness of evidence based strategies for reduction of crime and violence and the need to maintain relationships with a broad range of local partners, namely the civil society, to enable effective responses and information sharing
4. Promoting accountability and transparency
Since one of the core priorities of Usalama is the building of trust in the security and justice actors, Usalama makes every effort to develop systems, initiatives and processes that promote accountability, integrity and transparency and demonstrate to citizens that security and justice actors are capable of utilizing scarce resources to deliver services to their community
5. Community ownership
Usalama will ensure that its community safety initiatives reflect community perspectives, rely on local expertise and capacities to ensure that processes are participatory and work towards building local credibility and ownership; such that communities take charge of their own safety and security challenges.