The Office of the Ombudsman and partners are on a community engagement and media outreach
aimed at enhancing public trust, accountability and participation in The Gambia’s security sector reform
process.
The Office of the Ombudsman’s public sector oversight mandate, which includes security sector
institutions, gives it a crucial role in the reform process.
There cannot be any meaningful security sector reform without effective oversight. However, oversight
too can only be effective if there is adequate awareness of the existence of the reporting mechanisms
and their respective mandates; hence the participation of the Ombudsman in the outreach to raise
awareness of its mandate.
The outreach, which targets all five administrative regions, is part of activities of a three –year SSR
project funded by the UN Peacebuilding Fund. The project is being implemented jointly by the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
The Office of the Ombudsman is participating in the outreach with Office of National Security (ONS),
UNODC, OHCHR, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), and the CSO Coalition on Security
Sector Reform
