A USIP Factsheet
USIP’s Border Security Training Program (BSTP) trains police officers from Kenya’s Border Police Unit (BPU) and General Service Unit (GSU) who are serving on al-Shabaab’s major transit corridor along the Kenya-Somalia border. The program, which began in 2017, is implemented in partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism and equips Kenyan police with the skills to better understand the civilian environment and cultivate relationships in order to more effectively achieve their mission and counter terrorist activity.
Trainings:
USIP’s trainings incorporate practical exercises and are sequenced in a way that maximizes opportunities to practice skills as the training unfolds. The training has been closely integrated with professional and tactical skills training — including those received from the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Services Antiterrorism Assistance program — to ensure that officers view skills gained from the USIP training as an essential element in their toolkit. USIP’s work complements efforts to increase civilian-military engagements and increase information sharing between civilians and security forces.
The trainings are designed to meet the specific needs of BPU and GSU to sustain and deliver them beyond USIP engagement. USIP works directly with Kenya’s National Police College and other police training campuses to institutionalize its training curriculum into the college’s core curriculum. This is critical to ensuring integration and implementation of the work beyond U.S. government engagement.
Goal and Impact:
USIP’s training enables Kenyan security forces to mitigate terrorist activity and styme the influence of al-Shabaab in the region, eliminating the need for the U.S. to directly intervene.
- Over 1,500 officers have been engaged to date.
- USIP has trained a cadre of 25 dialogue facilitators, including 12 officers representing the BPU and 13 community-based organizations, who implemented more than 20 dialogues in four communities along the Kenya-Somalia border to identify and problem-solve security-related issues.
- USIP is developing a cadre of 76 BPU and GSU trainers who will continue to deliver trainings within their institutions beyond USIP engagement.
- BPU and GSU have committed to integrating USIP training content into their core curricula.
Examples of feedback/impact include:
"Our main objective is to fight terrorism, and we cannot win against terrorism without the community. We can use these skills to build trust and relationships with the community where we can have open communication with them.” BPU officer, May 2024
"This training directly reflects what we go through at the border, and it is necessary to engage all BPU officers in this training." BPU officer, May 2024