In Tajikistan, a legacy of mistrust between police and the communities they serve has made communities feel less secure. In 2018–19, we continued to support the Ministry of Internal Affairs on its national police reform strategy and processes, with a focus on community-based policing and community security. Together with five civil society organisation partners (Association of Scientific and Technical Intelligentsia of Tajikistan, Zarshedabonu, Marifatnoki, Lawyers’ Association of Pamir and Jahon), we informed more than 500 people from community groups, civil society and local authorities on community policing and security through our trainings and workshops. We supported 26 community-led action plans to address a wide variety of security concerns identified by community members. An estimated 45,000 people from across Tajikistan were impacted by the action plans, which created space for community members to raise concerns, connected them to service providers such as the police, and strengthened partnerships between community members and authorities through joint problem-solving activities.

We supported the renovation and furnishing of four community policing centres in remote regions of Tajikistan to provide safe spaces for police and communities to work together on joint plans for crime prevention and problem-solving, bringing the total number of community policing centres to 14. We worked with 30 civil society organisations to support them in developing their communications, awareness raising and advocacy work. We also mentored them to facilitate community policing meetings and dialogue workshops within and between communities and between communities and authorities, to identify and address security issues.

We trained and supported five groups, working across different sectors in society, to identify the underlying drivers of insecurity and violence. We provided them with resources for conducting outreach and strategic messaging campaigns aimed at changing the attitudes and behaviours of community members and authorities.