Recent WPON Activities Presented at the SEPCA’s Annual General Assembly

On 24-25 April 2013, the South East Europe Police Chiefs Association (SEPCA) held its Annual General Assembly Meeting in Banja Luka, Republic of Srpska. UNDP/SEESAC attended the meeting in the capacity of the WPON Secretariat. The current Chair of the Women Police Officers Network in South East Europe (WPON), Ms. Iva Balgac from the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Croatia, addressed the assembly and reported on the WPON activities and results achieved since the last SEPCA meeting held in November 2012. Given that the first phase of the WPON project implementation was completed in March 2013, Ms.Balgac took this opportunity to also highlight key results achieved since the project inception.

Ms. Balgac presented the Guidelines for Gender Sensitive Policing with a Particular Focus on Recruitment, Selection and Professional Development of Women in Police Services, which were developed by women police officers to outline concrete and simple steps that can help better integration of women in the police services in Southeast Europe. In the last two months, public presentations of the Guidelines and discussions on their implementation were organized by police services, with the support of UNDP/SEESAC in Albania, BiH, Croatia and Montenegro.

Overall, the WPON project contributed to raising gender awareness in police services, supported groundbreaking research on the position of women in police services, enhanced regional cooperation on gender equality through a network of women police officers from 8 countries, strengthened capacities of WPON members to mainstream gender equality in policing, enabled networking among police women and supported the establishment of local associations of women police officers.

Ms.Balgac noted that the support of SEPCA is one of the keys of success of this project and thanked police chiefs for their full support in the implementation of the project.

The focus of this year’s General Assembly was the future of SEPCA’s work, including its Development and Functioning Strategy for 2014 - 2017. The Assembly concluded that the Association will continue its fight against drug trafficking, organized crime, trafficking in firearms and stolen vehicles, trafficking in human beings and cybercrime. 

The Assembly meeting gathered representatives of the Republic of Srpska, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Austria and Italy, as well as the members of numerous relevant agencies, international organizations and initiatives including the EUROPOL, INTERPOL, FEDPOL, DCAF, ICITAP, IACP, PCC, RCC, MARRI.