PPTAG Meet
Members of the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police (PICP) Police Training Advisory Group (PPTAG) were urged to draw from experiences faced during the global pandemic and develop strategies that will ensure continuity in the delivery of training programs to PICP member countries.
The call was made by Fiji’s Commissioner of Police Brigadier General Sitiveni Qiliho who is also the current PICP and PPTAG Chair during the Advisory Group’s biannual meeting conducted via virtual conference today.
The PPTAG operates under the theme ‘By the Pacific, For the Pacific’ and its primary objective is to promote the engagement of Pacific Police in the design of training programs that bests suits the needs of the Pacific.
Brigadier General Qiliho said the pandemic had impacted training opportunities in the Pacific, and it was imperative for the PPTAG working group to identify and formulate workable solutions.
“We are living in unpredictable times and as we have seen some countries battle the third wave of the pandemic, the best we can do is prepare for all possible scenarios.
We need to have options available”.
The PICP Chair also stressed the importance of strengthening networking for the sake of ensuring the relevancy of Pacific Policing efforts.
“We shoulder a major responsibility to continuously look at holistic ways of addressing Pacific Policing training needs, even more so, when we are faced with an unpredictable global environment where the traditional approach can no longer be relied upon”.
“We have witnessed and experienced how the criminal landscape has evolved, and this has resulted in new modus operandi of how crimes are being committed and it is imperative therefore for law enforcement to adapt in order for us to effectively counter emerging criminal threats”.
Linking up virtually for the biannual meeting were from New Zealand, the PICP Secretariat and representatives of the New Zealand Police , from Australia the PPTAG Secretariat, from the Australian Federal Police the Pacific Community for Law Enforcement Cooperation (PCLEC) Team Leader, Pacific Police Development Program-Regional Coordinator and Team Leader Strategic Partnership, Team Leader Cyber Safety Pasifika, the Director of the Pacific Faulty of Policing and regional members from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, The PPTAG working committee will meet again next Tuesday.
