4.5 Mission to Serbia Activities Related to General Police Development and Reform Police Development and Reform In the period from 16 March to 27 April, the Mission supported 6 two-day workshops for MoI staff aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of resolving requests for access to information of public importance. The workshops trained a total of 182 assigned MoI staff from 30 municipalities in Serbia to processes half of the overall number of requests for information of public importance, which was approximately 3,000 requests. This activity was part of the Mission’s overall efforts to support strengthening of the accountability and transparency of the MoI. to formulate shared objectives, develop action plans, and design modalities for monitoring the implementation of key recommendations in the national SOCTAs. Participants included eight strategic analysts and members of the SOCTA teams from each country. This activity was part of the Mission’s overall efforts to foster operational and strategic police co-operation in combating serious and organized crime. The SOCTA publication1 is the result of a threeyear project, Enhancing Capacities for Strategic Analysis and Strategic Assessments in the Criminal Investigation Directorates of the Serbian, Montenegrin and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Ministries of Interior, which was funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and implemented by the Mission. The project is also part of the wider Swiss Police Co-operation Programme in the Western Balkans Police Management / Human Resources Strategic Planning including Threat Assessments From 8 to 12 February and 14 to 18 March, the Mission, together with the Ministries of Interior of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, organized two workshops to develop the regional SOCTA. At these events, a total of 23 strategic and operational analysts agreed on the methodology for developing the regional SOCTA and produced the first draft of this document. The draft text of regional SOCTA was then assessed by two Europol experts, who joined the second workshop for two days. This activity was part of wider efforts by the Mission, together with the Mission to Montenegro and the Mission to Skopje, to enhance the capacities of the regional Ministries of Interior in combating organized crime. On 14 November, the Mission organized a conference to promote the Regional SOCTA, which was developed jointly by the Ministries of the three before mentioned countries. The Head of the Mission opened the event alongside the Ministers of Interior from the three countries, the Head of the OSCE Mission to Montenegro and the Head of the OSCE Mission to Skopje. The event featured a strategic overview of the threats and risks caused by drug trafficking, irregular migration and human trafficking, cybercrime and other forms of organized and serious crime. The conference brought together some 100 participants, including representatives from the Ministries of Interior of the three countries, civil society organizations (CSOs), and international organizations. From 12 to 16 December, the Mission organized a workshop on the implementation of recommendations and findings of the SOCTA using a logical framework approach methodology. The aim of the workshop was to enable representatives of the SOCTA teams from the three aforementioned countries 80 In the period from 23 March to 19 May, the Mission together with the Ministry of Interior organized four workshops for district police officers, assigned with the new human resources management functions within the framework of the overall public administration reform process. The group of 75 officers from 29 municipalities in Serbia attended these events. The workshop focused on human resources management and policies, including staff performance appraisal, recruitment and selection, career advancement principles, staff planning, training and development and job descriptions. This activity was part of the Mission’s overall efforts to support the strengthening of accountable, democratic policing. Human Rights and Police Accountability On 2 February, the Mission promoted the results of the 2015 opinion poll “Attitude of Citizens towards the Work of the Police”. Commissioned by the Mission, the survey was conducted in late 2015 with a representative sample of approximately 1,500 citizens throughout Serbia. Results showed that corruption is increasingly seen as a problem affecting public safety in Serbia. The poll indicated that there has been an increase in public trust in nearly all of the state institutions surveyed, most notably the MoI and the police. This activity was part of the overall Mission’s effort to strengthen effective and accountable relations between the community and police services. In the period from 19 April to 6 December, the Mission, together with the Commissioner for Protection of Equality and the MoI, organized eight workshops for police officers from Belgrade, Nis, Novi Sad, Subotica, Vrsac, Kragujevac 1 The Assessment is published in the languages of the participating countries and English, and will soon be available on the websites of the three Interior Ministries.