Development aid to Bangladeshi police

12.3.2015

Question for written answer E-004107-15
to the Commission
Rule 130
Raymond Finch (EFDD)

The British Independent Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI) has strongly criticised the Department for International Development (DfID)’s 95-million-pounds-a-year budget to improve policing and security in the developing world. One programme aimed at developing the intelligence functions of the Bangladesh National Police. ICAI points out that this assistance might be misused, saying that politicisation of the Bangladeshi police had increased. The prison population spiked during periods of opposition activism. ICAI concluded: ‘In a deteriorating political context, the intelligence capacity built by UK assistance could be used to monitor and suppress political opposition groups’ (ICAI, Review of UK Development Assistance for Security and Justice, Report 42, March 2015, p. 23).

A programme in Ethiopia to support local police was cancelled in 2014 amid mounting allegations of rape, torture and murder by the regime. In the past two years DfID has scrapped programmes in Sudan and Congo because of police violence.

Could the Commission provide an overview and the cost of EU training programmes for the police forces of Libya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Nepal, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Malawi and Afghanistan since 2005?

Will the Commission ensure that this aid money is not misused to increase police violence and oppression of political opposition?