Developments in the region continue to demonstrate how a robust, accountable and effective policing service is vital to economic prosperity, political stability and the protection of human rights. The Pacific Regional Policing Initiative we are pleased to announce jointly today will be a critical contribution to the region's ongoing efforts to fight crime and corruption as well as transnational crimes such as drug trafficking.
Over five years, this $A17 million initiative will target police at all levels from recruit through to senior management. It will draw up to 900 regional police annually into a broad programme to strengthen core policing skills across the region, complementing police assistance projects already underway in a number of Pacific Island countries. In direct and tangible ways, the initiative is designed to strengthen: basic policing skills through training in core competencies and technical and forensic skills, and the provision of training infrastructure and equipment so as to deliver stronger operational and investigative crime-fighting capabilities; professionalism and policing ethics in regional forces through programmes specifically tailored to regional issues and constraints and the establishment of a regional peer group to reinforce professional standards and leadership; and, regional institutions and linkages, in particular supporting the South Pacific Chiefs of Police Conference (SPCPC) to foster regional networking and pooling of regional resources, and as a major driver of regional policing strategies.
The decentralised initiative will be based at a regional hub in Suva, with a “Virtual Academy” there for coordination and delivery of training. Mobile training teams will also travel throughout the region delivering standardised training. We are delighted at the strong support from our colleagues in the Pacific for the initiative, which we expect to start in early 2004 with overseas aid programme support of AUD15million from Australia and NZD 2.5 million from New Zealand. Honest, reliable and effective police are vital to our collective future. Pooling our regional resources to achieve this objective more effectively makes eminent good sense.