Sensitise border communities to safety
The Centre for Democratic Development, Ghana (CDD-Ghana) has called on the security agencies to step up the sensitisation of residents of border communities to help increase the level of awareness of security issues, in the wake of growing political instability in West Africa.
It further advised the security agencies to organise public fora, durbars and other public engagements to promote cordial relations between them and the border community members.
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It entreated religious leaders, including pastors and Imams, to use their respective platforms in churches and mosques to help educate people along the borders on the need to share information with the security agencies to improve on security at the country's borders.
Monitoring report
The call was contained in the centre's second monitoring findings for October, November and December 2021 under its “Enhancing citizens’ participation in border security” project.
The call comes at a time of growing incidence of coups d'etat and political instability in the West African sub-region, the latest coups occurring in Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali, with risks of a spillover to neighbouring countries in the sub-region.
Media briefing
Presenting the findings of the study at a media briefing in Accra last Monday, the Programmes Manager of CDD-Ghana, Mr Paul Nana Kwabena Aborampah Mensah, said there was the need to ensure that residents of border communities did not compromise security issues by harbouring strangers of whose backgrounds they were not aware.
He emphasised that there must be a conscious effort to assess all Ghana’s borders, although the security agencies were doing their best by intensifying patrols along the borders.
“While we commend the security agencies for their interest and support for the project by sensitising communities, we urge them to further increase their collaboration with volunteers of the CDD project and community members,” he said.
Findings
The report indicated that the current security situation in selected border communities was generally calm, with a few reported criminal cases that had received the attention of the security agencies.
The report was a compilation of individual reports received from 85 trained volunteers engaged by the organisation, through civil society organisations, who were into border-related activities.
The volunteers monitored 369 border communities in 10 regions. They also conducted 267 community sensitisation programmes.
The regions include Western, Western North, Bono, Bono East, Volta and Oti.
The rest are Northern, North East, Upper East and Upper West.
According to the assessment by the trained volunteers, the current security situation in 76 per cent of the communities monitored was generally good.
However, the current security situation in 11 per cent or 44 of the communities monitored was rated ‘poor’ or ‘very poor'.
Furthermore, the report indicated that in nine out of 10 of the communities, there were no visible threats of terrorism or violent extremist activities.
However, volunteers reported that they either observed or heard, in nine out of 10 communities, that there were suspected criminal activities and cases of illegal cross-border activities, including the smuggling of goods.
On the level of security awareness among residents of border communities across the country, 68 per cent of the communities monitored rated their security awareness level as ‘excellent’, ‘very good’ and ‘good’.
Border challenges
The Senior Programmes Officer, CDD-Ghana, Mr Mawusi Yaw Dumenu, for his part, said there were a number of challenges at the border points that posed threats to the country's security.
They included low citizens’ security awareness level, bad relations between border security agencies and community members, increasing number of unapproved routes, inadequate logistical and human resource to control and manage borders, as well as increasing cross-border trade, with some of them involving criminal activities, he said.
Background
The CDD-Ghana released its first report on the Border Communities Monitoring, Community Sensitisation and Radio programmes between August and September 2021 and its second report from October to December 2021.
The project, being supported by the US Embassy, was started in September 2019 and ends in March 2022, with an objective to enhance the security awareness of citizens along and across border communities.