EXTERNAL - EAMPLE: DCAF’S WORK WITH THE HONDURAN NATIONAL POLICE (HNP)

How was gender integrated? Motivated by the security context and boosted by political will, the programme shifted its focus.

Programme: Honduras Police Advisory Programme

To ensure the Policy is fully integrated and sustainably implemented, DCAF has also supported the HNP in designing their first Diploma on Gender Equity that was approved by the Education Council and is now taught at the Police University. This training has been offered to police officers from each of the 36 regions of the country, to ensure the information reaches all of the force, and has also been promoted in internal messaging. These gender equality priorities are now being reflected in longer-term planning by the HNP, through their inclusion in the current draft of its 2023–2030 Strategic Plan. If adopted, the Plan would make the HNP one of few forces in the region to identify gender equity as a strategic objective, and would ensure full implementation of the Gender Policy through a new ‘Institutionalization Working Group’.

DCAF’s Honduras Police Advisory Programme is a good practice case of a project that did not have gender objectives at its inception but has gradually incorporated more gender-specific objectives based on needs identified and shifts in political will – which grew out of some of the worst rates of femicide in the world. This prompted DCAF, the Swiss Development Corporation, and the Honduras National Police (HNP) to work together to strengthen police responses to gender-based violence (GBV) in Honduras, and also to mainstream gender throughout police policies and practices. The Honduras Police Advisory Programme now has a gender-specific objective – “the construction of an institutionally approved Gender Policy” – and gender has been made a central programmatic element, reflected in the promotion of gender equality and support for gender mainstreaming within the HNP as well as efforts to integrate a gender perspective in all activities. In 2020, DCAF thus supported the HNP in implementing DCAF’s Institutional Gender Self-Assessment (GSA), and its subsequent conversion into the first Institutional Gender Policy for police in Honduras. This landmark document, developed by stakeholders from across the institution, was formally approved in 2022.

Key lessons:

• Remain flexible to adapt to the context, and surf on political opportunities.

• Spotlight contextual gender challenges/gender-specific security challenges.

• Use iterative processes to redesign project outputs and outcomes/objectives.