Rwanda, Malawi keen to partner in police exchange programmes
Thursday, July 29, 2021

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Dan Munyuza, on Wednesday, July 28, visited Malawi’s Zomba Police College in the Eastern region.

The College conducts various courses including cadet, command and leadership.

It also offers short refresher courses for senior officers as well as specialised courses such as traffic and road safety, criminal investigations, and public order management, trains other law enforcement agencies like prisons, immigration and wildlife departments.

During the meeting with the college leadership, they expressed need to partner with Rwanda Police schools to exchange training programmes, trainers and trainees.

IGP Munyuza commended the College leadership for the rich training programmes and emphasized that Rwanda and Malawi police schools will work closely together to enhance capacities and capabilities of their officers.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Police Chief also visited the South-West Region Police headquarters in Blantyre Province, where he witnessed the policing journey of Malawi Police Service, shared experience and best practices with emphasis on crime reduction using community policing strategies.

The tour is part of the week-long visit aimed at strengthening cross-border cooperation between Rwanda National Police (RNP) and Malawi Police Service (MPS) as entailed in the Memorandum of Understanding binding the two Police institutions signed in March 2019 in Lilongwe.

The MoU specifies partnership in joint areas of training, operations, tracking and exchange of criminals, combating terrorism, drug trafficking, cybercrimes, information sharing on fugitives and other security-related matters.

During the bilateral meeting with his counterpart of Malawi, Dr. George Kainja, IGP Munyuza said that the two Police forces have made "strides including holding bilateral meetings, exchanging information, learning from each other and sharing expertise to jointly confront common threats affecting safety and social wellbeing of people in our two countries and our regions at large."

"In the face of prevailing global and regional security threats, we value Malawi’s efforts on bilateral and multilateral stages to seek sustainable solution to security challenges in the region and beyond.

Rwanda stands together with Malawi and all other African countries' resolve to end the unnecessary and destabilizing negative forces on our continent particularly violent extremism," IGP Munyuza said during the meeting.

The host, Dr. George Kainja said that the cooperation is even more important in the context of Islamic insurgency that is terrorizing Mozambique.

"The Malawi Government in General, and the Malawi Police Service, in particular, will ensure that all efforts to defeat this insurgency are supported. In addition, the security apparatus of this country is working tirelessly to ensure that our country is not used in any way by elements bent on destabilizing the region," Dr. Kainja said.