We spoke to Surendra Kumar Sharma, one of our PEN members with a long career in international policing. Mr Sharma is a retired Inspector General from India who has extensive experience with police and security reform in several post-conflict countries. In our conversation, he offers some insights into his experiences with policing in a conflict-setting in Afghanistan, as well as his experience of contributing to the ICT4COP project as a PEN member.
When Cecilia became a PEN-member, the network had been running for almost a year. She was a serving Police Officer working for the UN Mission in South Sudan and was introduced to the network by Tor Damkås, who had a key role in creating the network. Soon after she joined, there was a workshop with some of the PEN-members. One of the things that struck her the most was how different the cultures of academic approaches, as well as the culture of police officers, or practitioners, are
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Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli.
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Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.
Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli.
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Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.
”The political bosses focused more on the budget allocated by the donors rather than the output and relevance of the international support.
Surendra Kumar SharmaRule of Law/Security Sector Expert
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.
Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli.
Read more: Who is Surendra Kumar Sharma?
Inspector General (retired) Surendra Sharma, worked as UNDP Chief Technical Adviser to Minister of Interior, Inspector General of Police, Director General Prisons in South Sudan for over three and a half years on institutional development, police and prison reforms, capacity building and integrated and harmonized approach to transformation of the security sector. As Chief of UN Police Reforms and Restructuring for seven years , he was strategic adviser to UN Police Commissioners in UNMISS, UNMIT, and UNMIS on policy, police professionalization, institution building, civil military coordination, donor coordination, election security, resource mobilization and confidence and trust building strategies. He also served as UNPOL Sector commander in UN Mission in Mozambique.
In his tenure of over 15 years with UN as a senior Police professional, he has pioneered several projects to initiate transformation ( first Emergency Call Centre in South Sudan, setting up of Joint integrated police in Abyei and South Sudan), promote accountability (police registration, ID cards, payroll, asset management), community involvement in security (community policing models in Sudan and South Sudan) security of vulnerable groups, especially women and children (special protection units), to bring a gender sensitive approach to security reform and peace building initiatives. As Adviser to the DG Prisons, South Sudan, he played a key role in the establishment of the first vocational training workshop for skill development and rehabilitation of prisoners. He played a leading role in supporting registration, issue of ID cards, payroll computerization and capacity building of prison staff and publication of the first Inmate Statistics Report in South Sudan. As Senior Security Sector/Rule of Law Expert with UNDP Afghanistan, Surendra worked for about three and a half years with the Afghan Ministry of Interior, NATO and international partners, to initiate several projects focusing on community security involving community participation, especially women and vulnerable groups, development of critical security infrastructure and capacity building of Afghan Police.
Prior to joining UNDP in 2013, Surendra served as Inspector General, in the Indian Border Police and commanded two of the most sensitive frontiers on the international border. He has over 32 years of experience in all aspects of police work, institutional and individual capacity building of security institutions, networking and infra-structure development. He has held senior command positions in Kashmir and North East in India and has first-hand experience of counter insurgency operations. A qualified instructor, he served as Training Coordinator in the national Border Police Academy in India. An acknowledged expert in non-lethal munitions, he pioneered the development of several new non-lethal munitions. He also headed the Disaster Management Training facility of his organization and is a qualified instructor in disaster management.
Surendra holds a PhD in life sciences and a Bachelor’s degree in Law besides having undergone several specialized trainings in various subjects, both at home and abroad.
Surendra Kumar Sharma
Rule of Law/Security Sector Expert
Photo: Surendra Kumar Sharma
