These models recognize that in modern approaches to security and community safety there is a need to move away from the top down central approach of security towards a more flexible and participatory approach. The project predicts that the implementation of these pilot models will lead to more effective and sustainable community safety and security approach which better reflects and addresses the views and concerns of the citizens.

Security pilot models are necessary because there is a need for improving local coordination mechanisms to prevent each administration from working in isolation. Furthermore, the role of NGOs and local public authority needs to be institutionalized in the production of security. For this to be accomplished, stakeholders can sign local security contracts as a clear signal that they want to work together” Roché argues.

As part of the security pilot models these local security contracts improve civilian oversight because horizontal oversight can only be achieved if there are local security plans that are prepared under the leadership of the governors in consultation with civil society. Roché adds: “No policing plan means no defined policing policy and thus restricting oversight by the governors.” In Turkey, he claims “the contributions of the police and the gendarmerie can for example be better coordinated for the next 3 years.” The real challenge in Turkey, according to Roché is “about bringing police and gendarmerie as well as other organizations around the same table.”

Improvement of Civilian Oversight of the Internal Security Sector project’s security pilot models draw from aspects of models of inter-agency coordination and local security strategic planning that are being used in France and the UK and aim in particular to move towards citizen focused policing. Roché summarizes the reason for choosing these two countries as follows: “we use the EU examples as a reservoir of diversity. A centralized unitary country with governors (France) and a more decentralized country with local police forces and local Parliaments (the UK) are very useful in this sense. These two countries have recognized the need for these “local security contracts”.

The security models will be applied in the three pilot provinces of İstanbul, Niğde and Erzurum. These provinces were selected on the basis of a number of criteria including size, geographical location, social and cultural situations and the capacity of the Governorates to provide leadership and coordination through a participatory approach of including stakeholders in the development of pilot models. Though “the formal structure is identical” says Roché, “it is filled according to the local realities. In the commission, the membership can differ. The selection of the priority targets will also be different.” When asked whether each province has challenges of its own, Roché further continues: “In a large city like Istanbul the civil society is stronger, and it is perhaps a metropolis more open to innovation. In smaller provinces, the coordination can be easier, but the resources will be less.”

The models will allow for planning the policing policy at the local level, integrating civil society into that planning, and this will permit oversight by the governor which will benefit all stakeholders including the internal security forces.

Perhaps the most challenging task in the application Improvement of Civilian Oversight of the Internal Security Sector project in Turkey, was gathering all key stakeholders together. It became apparent during the process that for many of the stakeholders in these provinces it was the first time that they had actually sat together in a formal meeting scenario. Therefore, it is not surprising that Roché, as well as internal experts that worked in other countries in the same geographical regions, are impressed by the commitment of the stakeholders in Turkey because “people who have never met before are now around the same table.”

For more information, please click here or UNDP'S project website.