Enhancing Citizen Participation in Border Security Management

Project Name

Enhancing Citizen Participation in Border Security Management

Duration

42 months

Funder(s)

US Embassy

Project Info

The West African sub-region is bedeviled with security threats from terrorist organizations and jihadists travelling from north Africa. These incessant threats and actual attacks launched against many West African countries and particularly Ghana’s north and west bordered countries has heightened the fear and the possibility of terrorist organizations and jihadists infiltrating Ghana through her porous borders to launch similar attacks on the state. Also, the close proximity of some of the attacks launched on Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast to Ghana are manifestations of the possibility of similar attacks on the Ghanaian state.

The security agency legally mandated to control movement of people and goods across borders is the Ghana Immigration Service. However, the porousness of the borders among other challenges have resulted in the movement of people and goods into Ghana without any serious checks to sniff out illegal immigrants and goods. The fight against terrorism requires not just the expert effort of the security agencies but also, awareness creation among the citizenry.

It is on the back of this that CDD-Ghana is implementing e a 42-month project that will engage citizens in border communities for preventive measures against the surging threat of terrorist attacks and violent extremism.

The project is principled on inclusive governance and the maxim that security is a shared responsibility. The project will specifically:

1. To increase the level of security consciousness and awareness of citizens in border communities.

2. To improve citizens’ confidence and build trust between the citizens and security services,

3. To enhance citizen involvement in community policing, and build a culture of information sharing across the borders (among Ghanaian communities and their counterparts in neighboring countries.

Key Activities

1. Scoping visits to 39 border areas (36 minor borders and 3 major borders) in Ghana to get first-hand understanding of the security situation in those areas.

2. Consultations and partnerships with national and local level stakeholders to guarantee its success.

3. A study to understand the extent of threat Ghana faces, the relationship between the border officials and the citizens, and facilitate the reporting of suspicious actions conducive to terrorism. Research is central to understanding such a phenomenon as well as proffering measures that will better equip the security agencies and ordinary citizens to deal with terrorism.

4. Sensitization of border citizens on what actions and inactions are fertile for terrorism and the perpetration of attacks against people, how to identify terrorists and their allies, and the need to report such actions and inactions as soon as they are noticed

5. Development of a checklist of indicators to ensure actions or inactions of individuals that fall within indicators of terrorism are reported or dealt with.

6. Engaging individuals as local volunteers to sniff out danger and report to the security agencies as well as submit monthly reports to CDD-Ghana.

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