Curbing drug trafficking: Over 15,000 personnel complete training

UNODC says e-learning for law enforcement personnel to be expanded

ISLAMABAD: With more than 15,000 law enforcement personnel having completed 100,000 hours of training through the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Pakistan’s e-learning platform, the international agency plans to establish 20 more centres by next year’s end to further expand the programme.

With a total of 40 e-learning centres established across the country, the agency is planning to establish 20 more by the end of next year, taking the total to 60 centres that will provide core training to law enforcement personnel.



Officials at the National Conference on e-Learning, organised by UNODC, explained that a total of 20 Pakistani law enforcement agencies had partnered with the organisation to teach 92 e-learning courses.

Trainings were provided with physical laboratories along with all required equipment and officials had an option to undergo the training in English, Urdu or Pashto for better understanding.

The modules of the course focus on searches and interdiction techniques, evidence collection and preservation, detecting and investigating transnational organised crimes, criminal intelligence, and crime scene investigations.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, UNODC Representative Cesar Guedes explained that the models were of international standards but were tailored to be in coherence to Pakistani reality such as crime scene investig.

“Some (courses) are more specialised than others. They have been handpicked by national counterparts” said Guedes, adding that we used Pakistani local languages, features, sites and environments for better results.

“The objective is to reach out to all of them with specialised topics of their interest so it helps them improve their efficiency.”

Muhammed Akbar Khan Hoti, secretary of the Narcotics Control Division, said with the passage of time, poppy cultivation has increased in Afghanistan.

He insisted that with the US withdrawal edging closer it was necessary that police personnel were trained to reach expectations.

He stated that to curtail terrorism, the drug line in the tribal areas had to be cut.

Hoti suggested that European Union could play a role in providing scanners for containers that could be installed at both sea ports in Balochistan and Sindh.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Planning Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal said the global environment was no longer stable and needed institutions to work with new challenges. “It is more complex and uncertain than ever,” he said.

He insisted that the public sector had to learn and reform for better alignments of internal capability to combat external challenges.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2014.