Twelve participants from the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security and Vietnamese Police Academies participated in a Clingendael Academy training programme on the implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) during the first week of October. This week of training is the first of six workshops to take place in the 2018-2020 period. The ultimate goal of the Ministry is to train a great number of Vietnamese law enforcement officials on the prohibition against torture and equip them with the right knowledge and skills to prevent torture from taking place.

Capacity-building for Vietnamese law enforcement trainers

The Vietnamese delegation, headed by Lt. General Nguyen Ngoc Anh of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security, worked with Clingendael trainers towards the development of a curriculum for their law enforcement staff. Clingendael Academy prepared a capacity-building programme for them in which we trained the participants in making a training needs analysis, formulating learning goals and developing and using different workings forms. During the following months, the delegation will work towards the finalization of their curriculum, which will again be discussed with Clingendael trainers during the follow-up workshop in Hanoi in December 2018.

In order to help Vietnam in training many of their law enforcement officials in a training programme, Clingendael Academy will support these efforts during the following years through a Training of Trainers programme. Clingendael trainers will provide five training workshops in Vietnam to support the Ministry of Public Security in creating this spill-over effect.

Earlier cooperation with Vietnam

This new training cooperation was developed as a follow-up to the earlier training programmes Clingendael Academy conducted for the Vietnamese government over the past three years. The earlier programme was aimed at strengthening the Vietnamese governments capacities in implementing the UNCAT which they ratified in 2015. During the visit of the Vietnamese Prime Minister to the Netherlands, Prime Minister Phuc and Prime Minister Rutte expressed their willingness to continue cooperation on UNCAT implementation in their joint statement.