Mali Academies of Excellence Program

Strategic Capacity Group supported Mali’s National Police, National Guard, National Gendarmerie, and Civil Protection training institutions to equip their law enforcement personnel with the knowledge and skills to meet the complex and evolving security needs of Mali’s government and citizens. With the goal of transforming Mali’s law enforcement training academies, SCG pursued a systemic approach to comprehensively address fundamental structural, institutional, content, and capacity gaps of Mali’s four policing and security services, including developing the political will and capabilities for coordination and interoperability.

Strategic Capacity Group implemented a five-year project (2018-2022) for the U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) to transform how Mali’s National Police, National Guard, National Gendarmerie, and Civil Protection prepare their law enforcement personnel to meet the complex and evolving security needs of Mali’s government and citizens. SCG prioritized developing and maintaining robust partnerships and aligning the program with Malian priorities, which effectively translated into strong national ownership of training system reform efforts. Project activities included:

• Assessing, designing, and executing Mali’s law enforcement training in line with identified learning outcomes.

• Building buy-in for reform based on a shared understanding among the four partner security institutions of operational gaps and mission priorities.  

• Formulating a comprehensive training system reform plan (Strategic Vision Plan for Academies Reform 2021-2025) to ensure long-term sustainability of modernization efforts for pre- and in-service training across different professional levels.  

• Developing and implementing an instructor professionalization and certification program to improve pedagogic methods for an enhanced transmission of knowledge and skills.  

• Designing and delivering an innovative citizen engagement curriculum at the request of the Malian government to address priority learning outcomes.  

• Implementing institutional learning mechanisms to maintain curricular relevance, based on systematic training evaluations, and a learning and performance content management system.

To ensure robust buy-in throughout the five years of project implementation and to sustain reforms upon project completion, SCG worked with the Malian Ministry of Security and Civil Protection to create a strategic change management structure, which ensured continued guidance and institutionalization. In addition to consulting Ministry leadership, SCG supported the creation of a Senior Advisory Council, comprised of the top leadership of law enforcement institutions, as well as a technical-level Academies of Excellence Working Group (AEWG), which was comprised of senior managers and senior permanent instructors from the four law enforcement agencies. One program of instruction in particular represents the fundamental shifts in both policing doctrine and instruction: SCG worked with the Senior Advisory Council and the AEWG to develop a standardized initial training program for NCOs to build the competences required for the execution of mission responsibilities required as common to the four services by Malian law, and for fostering force coordination and interoperability.  

Strategic Capacity Group (SCG) is a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing the ability of the United States and its partners to build strategic security sector capacity both at home and abroad. SCG assists donor and recipient governments to assess institutional capacity, identify gaps, develop and implement solutions, and improve the sustainability and impact of reform.

SCG’s Academies of Excellence Program is designed to modernize and reform military and law enforcement academies. The program works with government ministries and academy leaders to assess institutional effectiveness, revise learning outcomes, design new curricula, enhance faculty expertise, create feedback loops, and streamline academy management processes. This is accomplished by:

• Assessing current curricula, pedagogy, and outcomes to identify needs and gaps;
• Modernizing curricular content to enhance learning, standardize training, and improve interoperability;
• Educating the educator using pedagogical tools that blend conceptual and field-based learning; and
• Designing institutional research and feedback loops from the field to keep curricula current.