It says its support to the GPS would be facilitated by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) office in Ghana.

The Resident Representative of JICA Ghana Office, Mr Hoshi Hirofumi, gave an assurance when the Director of Community Policing, ACP Habiba Sarpong Twumasi, paid a courtesy call on him.

According to a statement issued by JICA in Accra yesterday, ACP Twumasi paid the visit to Mr Hirofumi’s office, to brief him on her visit to Japan.

She travelled to Japan as a beneficiary of one of JICA’s training programmes on community policing in Japan.

“The programme was designed to provide opportunity for participants from various countries to improve their technical capacity and gain understanding into Japanese community policing module which was being implemented in partnership with local residents and the educating system of police officers,” it said.

Benefits of the training

The statement said ACP Twumasi mentioned, among others, that ways of building trust in GPS and making use of the expertise of retired police officers, were some of the key perspectives she brought back from the training programme.

It mentioned others as how to link patrol men and the communication command centres, as well as developing a close and proactive relationship between the police and the citizenry to resolve crime.

“Learning from Japan’s experience was so beneficial because Japan at one time went through similar situations as Ghana is now; and the policies and interventions that were carefully planned and executed were able to bring them as far as they are now,” the statement quoted ACP Twumasi.

Suggestions

“Comparing the situations of both countries, the road map to Japan’s success today could be adopted or current interventions could be adapted to help boost policing in Ghana,” it added.

The statement said, ACP Twumasi noted that in adopting the road map of Japan’s success, the first step would be to build public trust and confidence in the GPS with a focus on community policing.

She indicated that the trust of the people in the police was very important and also described the training programme as timely.

JICA

JICA is a Japanese governmental agency that coordinates official development assistance by its government for developing countries.

Among its focus are the reduction of poverty through equitable growth, improvement of governance, achievement of human security and enhancement of research and knowledge sharing.

In Ghana, JICA is making tremendous inputs into the health, agriculture and education sectors of the economy.