Harnessing public engagement for police accountability in Africa

Direct engagement and collaboration hold significant potential for improving policing on the continent.

In contextualising a report on the public’s use of social media to engage with and promote police accountability in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, this report gives an overview of public accountability mechanisms across the globe and explores some of the challenges facing the public’s engagement in police accountability. It also sketches four important steps towards harnessing public engagement to hold the police accountable in African contexts where the police have either lost or are struggling to re-establish their legitimacy.

About the author

Romi Sigsworth is a Research Consultant with the Transnational Threats and International Crime programme of the ISS. Prior to this, she was the gender specialist at the ISS and a Senior Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. She has an MSt in Women’s Studies from the University of Oxford.

Picture: Amelia Broodryk/ISS