(From left) INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble, INTERPOL President and South African Police Service Commissioner Jackie Selebi, and South African Divisional Commissioner Gary Kruser at the opening session of the 16th Training Symposium in Johannesburg, 5-7 March.

See also   Opening address by the Secretary General of INTERPOL, Ronald K. Noble   Photo gallery

Johannesburg – INTERPOL’s 16th Training Symposium for Heads of Police Training, being hosted by the South African Police Service in Johannesburg 5-7 March, is aimed at "Building an International Learning Community" for law enforcement agencies around the world.

With this theme, the symposium will focus on initiatives to improve international cooperation in police training to assist countries with limited resources, the use of e-learning and multi-media in police training, the transformation of monitoring missions into training missions, and the development of more effective service delivery through better management.

"Criminals and organized crime groups constantly change the ways they operate," said INTERPOL's President and South African Police Service Commissioner Jackie Selebi. "So we must constantly develop the capacities needed to adapt to this ever changing crime environment."

Confronting today’s law enforcement challenges requires continuous improvements in the content and delivery of training, and heads of police training play a vital leadership role in achieving mutual law enforcement goals.

INTERPOL recognizes that to fight all forms of serious international crime, it must continue to facilitate the building of investigative and enforcement capabilities within its 186 member countries’ police services.

"By helping our member countries to learn from one another’s police training programs and philosophies, we improve the likelihood they’ll be better prepared to prevent and fight serious international crime," said INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.

Since the 15th Training Symposium held in Hong Kong, China in 2005, INTERPOL has developed and delivered a number of training initiatives to better prepare police. In 2005, with the strong support of its Executive Committee, the INTERPOL Training Office was created to provide a global police training strategy to compliment the national strategies of its member countries.

In 2006, more than 1,100 staff members from 139 member countries received INTERPOL-sponsored training. INTERPOL has scheduled 11 training courses across all regions for 2007.

The INTERPOL International Police Training Program was developed in 2006, providing officers from member countries with the opportunity to rotate, in three-month sessions, through its General Secretariat in Lyon, France.

Other initiatives include the Anti-Heroin Smuggling Training Centre in Moscow, which has been established to provide field training to fight drug trafficking over the Internet, and the most extensive bioterrorism prevention training program in the world.

INTERPOL is also in the process of establishing the world’s first international anti-corruption academy, in Austria, and state-of-the-art training facilities in INTERPOL’s sub-regional bureaus (SRB) to provide effective and coordinated training at the regional level.

Finally, training for INTERPOL’s I-24/7 global police communications system has been provided to staff in 185 member countries, and an additional 10 courses will be provided for 150-200 officers as the I-24/7 system is extended beyond the National Central Bureaus (NCB) in 2007.

More information on INTERPOL and its police support services is available at: www.INTERPOL.int.