The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) held an historic, four-day seminar on security sector reform from 14-17 April 2008, demonstrating the country’s willingness to move beyond its tumultuous past and advance the development objectives set out in its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.

The seminar was prepared by a national Security Sector Reform Committee comprised of representatives of CAR’s security and justice services, government officials and members of civil society. UNDP provided technical and financial support.

Daily progress updates were released after each session of the four-day seminar on http://hdptcar.net/blog/ssr (English) and www.cf.undp.org (French). Links to seminar documents (and daily summaries) are below.

Background documents (Documents de base)

Seminar Agenda (in French)
SSR Committee Background Document (in French)
Press Release (English) Communiqué de presse (français)

Opening speeches (Discours d’ouverture)

CAR President François Bozizé Speech (in French)
SSR Committee President Gen. Antoine Gambi Speech (in French)
UNDP Resident Representative Speech (in French)

Seminar presentations (Présentations du séminaire)

Current status of security sector (Etat des lieux du secteur de la sécurité)

• National army and Gendarmerie (Forces armées centrafricaines et la gendarmerie)
  • Speech (discours)
• National police (Police nationale)
• Municipal police (Police municipale)
• Environmental enforcement (Eaux et forêts)
• Customs enforcement (Douanes)
• Private security and armed groups (Sociétés de sécurité privées et d’autres milices)

• Threats analysis (Analyse des menaces)
• DDR in CAR (Situation du DDR en RCA)
  • Speech (discours)
• Popular expectations of SSR (Attentes et perspectives de la population)
  • Speech (discours)

Operational conclusions by security sub-sector (Conclusions opérationnelles par pilier)

• National army and the Gendarmerie (Forces armées centrafricaines et la gendarmerie)
• Justice and penitentiary systems (Systèmes judiciaires et pénitentiaires)
• Governance (Gouvernance)
• National police (Police nationale)
• Municipal police (Police municipale)
• Environmental enforcment (Eaux et forêts)
• Customs enforcement (Douanes)
• Intelligence agencies (Services de reseignements)

Cross-cutting operational conclusions (Conclusions opérationnelles par thème transversal)

• Democratic control and the role of parliament (Contrôle démocratique et le rôle du parlement)
• Transparency and good governance (Gouvernance, transparence budgétaire et lutte contre la corruption)
• Gender, civil society and the media (Rôle de la société civile et des médias et la dimension genre)
• Links between DDR and SSR (Liens entre DDR et RSS)
• Small arms and foreign fighters (Armes légères et combattants étrangers)

Final documents (Synthèses et conclusions opérationnelles)

• Proposed reform timeline (Chronogramme de réformes)
• Final Report on Seminar and Preparatory Phase (Rapport final du Comité préparatoire du Séminaire)
• Crucial steps: Security sector reform in CAR (English-language overview of SSR process)
• Roadmap for SSR implementation in 2008 (Feuille de route du Comité Sectoriel RSS)
• Final seminar report (Rapport du séminaire)

Seminar updates and photos

14 April 2008
The Central African Republic launched its historic four-day seminar on security sector reform today in the Bangui Sports Complex conference rooms. President François Bozizé officially opened the seminar, accompanied by National SSR Committee President General Antoine Gambi, Prime Minister Faustin Touadéra and UNDP Resident Representative Toby Lanzer. Presentations were delivered by members of the National SSR Preparatory Committee and by national experts. .

15 April 2008
CAR’s security sector reform seminar concluded its second session on Tuesday, completing presentations on the state of the country’s security and justice services and breaking into working groups focused on initial reform proposals. .

16 April 2008
The third day of CAR’s SSR seminar came to a close this evening after having presented reform proposals for the country’s security and justice sectors. Based on earlier discussions of the current state and needs of individual sectors, working groups offered reform proposals with implementation timelines of up to 24 months.

17 April 2008
CAR’s historic security sector reform seminar came to a close Thursday evening, presenting a timeline for the implementation of reforms. President François Bozizé attended the closing ceremony and declared that the government would work to abide by the timeline established by participants.

More information

Sylvie More, UNDP Programme Officer
sylvie.more@undp.org