“This is the most valuable and scientific learning and training course I have ever had in my career as a police officer, in policing in general, and homicide investigating and e-learning in particular, thanks to a dedicated team of UNDP professionals and efficient trainers, for explaining international experience, and simulating real life situations on the use of IT and forensic technology.” says a participant describing UNDP’s new e-learning platform.

Designed for the Iraqi local police to provide opportunities for training, career development and specialised education, the new UNDP-supported e-learning platform www.iqshorta.com offers easy access and enrolment to all police officers in Iraq and is the first initiative of its kind under the Government of Iraq’s Ministry of Interior (MoI).

The platform provides courses on standard operating procedures for criminal investigations, homicide investigations, financial investigation techniques, and mid-level management. The courses complement existing offline courses on investigation for police officers such as homicides and suspect interviewing, also supported by UNDP.

The first police officers who completed the online courses were excited to share their stories. Here are some of their comments:

“Besides the iqshorta.com training platform, which I was first to register and pass, the way in which we were guided and tutored by UNDP brings the best out of every participant in terms of theory and practice.”

“The platform for me is like a professional trainer, with excellent facilitation, easy registration steps, and a design that makes building and transferring knowledge very smooth.”

“There are many takeaways that I have acquired by the end of the course, none more so than [having received] an excellent file full of knowledge and references for streamlining our procedures of daily tasks that concern homicides, forensic science and DNA tracing.”

“Unfortunately, we lack knowledge in the use of technology, especially IT. The user-friendly techniques, guidance and follow up by UNDP staff was an opportunity to me and my fellow officers to get acclimatised to the use of the [e-learning] platform, from which we can capitalize on our potential and hunger for learning to expand our knowledge.”

This initiative is implemented through the UNDP Iraq Security Sector Reform and Rule of Law Programme, generously supported by Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and USA. This programme aims to strengthen security and justice sector governance in Iraq.