United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) Train Somali Custodial Corps

The United Nations has provided human resource registration and management skills training to a team of Somali Custodial Corps as part of efforts to strengthen the integrity of the registration systems of the country’s security institutions.
The training, conducted in Mogadishu between 1 and 5 March, aims to strengthen human resource systems within the Custodial Corps that were destroyed following decades of civil war.
The human resources and registration is part of the United Nations support to the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS] as it strives to make its security institutions more transparent and accountable for its public resources.
“It is about transparency of public funds to ensure that salaries paid from the Federal Government of Somalia to individuals are paid correctly and in line with national policies,” said Stephen Cox, a Corrections Officer for the Joint Justice and Corrections Section of the UN’s Rule of Law and Security Institutions Group (ROLSIG).
“This programme and equipment will help the Somali Custodial Corps build a more functional, transparent system for human resources. It will allow the Custodial Corps to register all their staff and to understand their demography”, added Cox.
The project is funded by the Bridging and Inception Programme managed by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and facilitated by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM).
The Collaborative working, using comparative advantages has enabled a smooth roll out of the human resources and registration system in the Somali Military, Police and Custodial Corps. It is anticipated that following the training, registration of the Custodial Corps officers at Mogadishu Prison will begin next week.
One of the trainees from the Somali Custodial Corps, Sa’dia Hassan Ali, says of the training, “We have got machines that can easily identify the eyes and finger prints. The photo of the prison personnel and name will be checked together – corruption is over.’’
The human resources database registers all the details of employed staff and biometrically identifies them through fingerprints and retina scans of both eyes. This prevents registering the same person twice and gives the FGS a full picture of the demographics of its security services.
‘’What we studied here is an advantage for the disciplined forces, especially to the Custodial Corps. Furthermore, it will help us for registering one time and get the person’s details right at the first instance. This will kick out the corruption of taking salary from two, three or five different sources,” said Salim Abdulaziz Abdalla from the Somali Custodial Corps.
Cox explained that UNOPS will mentor the trainees for the first few days then they will be left on their own to register all of the Custodial Corps staff in Mogadishu. Once that is completed, UNSOM will facilitate the registration in the regions until all the Custodial Corps staff in Somalia are registered.
It is anticipated that the FGS and Custodial Corps will benefit from having an accurate database of all its employees and relevant information about them, which will be invaluable for workforce planning including budgets, recruitment and training.