By Judith Ugwumadu | 5 March 2015

The Department for International Development’s security and justice programmes suffers from a lack of management attention, which has led to unclear objectives and poor supervision, the aid watchdog has said. 

A report from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, published today, looked at UK development assistance for security and justice, examining programmes in 10 countries. The watchdog concluded it was concerned that the lack of overall strategy had led to a repetition of interventions.

ICAI is calling on the department to critically reflect on the overall goals of the portfolio and on what objective are realistic in complex operating environments.

Policing programmes are not achieving changes to service delivery, crime rates or community security, ICAI said.

DFID’s approach to community policing focuses more on supporting police with community outreach activities, than on changing operational tactics through crime prevention activities or increased patrolling in high-risk areas.

ICAI Chief Commissioner Graham Ward said there was a need for significant rethink of DFID’s security and justice portfolio.

Ward said: ‘DFID should move away from investing broadly in the capacity of security and justice institutions, towards addressing specific security and justice challenges in particular contexts. This would make interventions more focused, realistic in scope and more effective.’

The report did however find that DFID’s security and justice programmes was showing promising results in addressing some of the needs of women and girls, particularly through community level.

A DFID spokeswoman said: ‘Security and justice are the most challenging sectors we work in and DFID focuses on countries with the biggest potential for improvement. We have made good process particularly in helping women and girls gain access to justice, but where concerns about human rights and instability become too high, we have no hesitation in shutting programmes down.’