Leadership Program for Security and Rule of Law

Activities of the Project "Leadership Program for Security and Rule of Law", implemented by the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (SCTM) in cooperation with the Dutch Association of Local Authorities (VNG) are aimed at strengthening the capacity of national and local institutions in Serbia, Turkey and Albania in the area of public security and the rule of law, to further the implementation of the reform process through harmonization with European standards. Project is funded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with the active participation of the Embassy in Belgrade.

Achievements of the Project are envisaged through the following 4 outputs:

1. Capacities of national and local government to act, commit and deliver on public security and protecting human rights are increased by taking responsibilities for one's role and applying principles of good governance and rule of law;
2. Capacities of national and local government to achieve coherence and to adapt frameworks for policy development are increased by setting quality performance standards on public security in line with European standards;
3. Capacities of national and local government to relate to external stakeholders are increased and demonstrated by participation of civil society, in particular minority groups, in decision-making process, protection of minority rights and promotion of a culture of tolerance and anti-discrimination;
4. Capacities of training institutes to achieve coherence are increased by providing training in the field of good governance, rule of law, public security and human rights

Relevance to the objective of Matra CoPROL

This project has been designed as "Leadership programme" that is based on the 2 pillars ‘rule of law' and ‘democratic governance'. The "Leadership programme" supports government reforms in the field of public security and protection of minorities and human rights by increasing capacity with respect to effectiveness and efficiency, transparency, integrity and anti-corruption, accountability and civil participation.

The Leadership programme tackles political and administrative patterns of behavior to provide frameworks for policy development and to allow for public administration reforms and their implementation towards meeting European standards. The project fosters a multi-actor approach and targets government institutions dealing with security, i.e.: Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Interior, police, local authorities, public prosecution. Further, public training institutes and (nation-wide) local government associations will be involved to sustain the project's outputs. To promote closer ties between Dutch (semi-) governmental institutions and their counterparts in the target countries, the following Netherlands institutions in the public security sector will be involved: Netherlands Ministry of Security and Justice, Netherlands Ministry of Interior, the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) and Netherlands municipalities, the National Police Academy and National Police. They have expressed their interest to bring their specific expertise to the project as the Netherlands serves as a good example of an integrated approach. In the Netherlands for instance, the prosecution department and decentralised police officers work closely together with regional and local authorities and other institutions on the prevention and detection of criminal offences. But also the security benchmark is a good Dutch example for measuring security, safety and livelihood and provides valuable information to the different security actors to supports a comprehensive and coordinated approach.

Main activities 

The leadership programme focuses at strengthening public leadership to ensure institutions perform better in implementing and enforcing law and in involving civil society. Good democratic leadership, as defined by the Council of Europe's Centre of Expertise for Local Self Government, requires three core competences: 1) Developing a vision, strategy and policy, 2) Effective and efficient service delivery, 3) Participation of and cooperation with all groups of civil society. 

The "Leadership programme for security and rule of law" consists of 3 main activities relating to these three core competences, and is supplemented by a Training of Trainers:

1. Leadership and Good Governance programme aimed at improving visionary and strategic leadership of high-level policy and decision makers at institutions in public security sector;
2. Security benchmark and standard setting as tool for improved performance and coherence with stakeholders;
3. Multi-stakeholder workshops to increase the capacity of government practitioners to include all civil society groups, in particular minority groups, in the policy and decision making process, protection of minority rights and promote a culture of tolerance and anti-discrimination;
4. Training of trainers at institutes for public administration to sustain the leadership programme in the local context.

Implementing partners

The project will be implemented by the International Cooperation Agency of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG International) in consortium with The Hague Academy for Local Governance (THA), Center for International Legal Cooperation (CILC) and the Dutch Institute for Public Administration (ROI). Implementing partners in the target countries are institutes that represent local government interest at the national level: the Turkish Union of Municipalities (UMT), the Serbian Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (SCTM) and the Foundation for Local Autonomy and Governance (FLAG) of Albania. 

Contact person in SCTM is Aleksandar Popovic, Project Manager, aleksandar.popovic@skgo.org