United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

The UNODC Regional Office in East Africa (ROEA)

Leading Change Management with the Kenya Coast Guard Service 

Mombasa (Kenya), 14-16 November 2022 – To further strengthen Kenya’s ability to protect its territorial waters, UNODC and the Danish National Police (DNP) jointly hosted an executive leadership seminar for the Kenya Coast Guard Service (KCGS), with support from the Kingdom of Denmark.

Organized by UNODC’s Global Maritime Crime Programme (GMCP), the seminar encouraged senior managers of KCGS to revisit its institutional vision and stimulated discussion on priorities, such as information management and sharing for intelligence-led operations.  The trainers of the DNP shared insights into how to further cultivate an organizational culture to drive forward change. Ms. Lise Jensen, Police Deputy Chief Superintendent of the DNP, said “the change process may be difficult and time-consuming, but by following a set of evidence-based principles, KCGS can take forward the change it wishes to effect.”

The strategic discussion was anchored in Dr. John Kotter’s 8-Step Change Management Model, enabling the KCGS leadership team to interpret the model against their operational realities and develop an action plan with key targets and next steps for future success. By starting to generate greater urgency and creating a guiding coalition, KCGS will lay the groundwork towards its aspirations to serve as a lead agency in the provision of maritime security and safety. For Ms. Sicily Gatiti, Head of KCGS’s Human Resources Department, “the organization will achieve its goals by collaborating with key stakeholders, ensuring continuous improvement, and adapting to the ever-changing environment, thus contributing to the realization of Kenya’s Vision 2030 and a blue economy aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 14.”

UNODC intends to further strengthen its partnership with KCGS, including to implement the action plan and support their staff to achieve key priorities. With 25% of KCGS officers trained in information management and sharing, UNODC GMCP will support trained KCGS instructors to further transfer their acquired knowledge. In the words of a trained instructor, Ms. Ann Chege, Constable of KCGS, “the information management and sharing training promotes multi-agency operations by alleviating cultural barriers to information exchange and exposing officers to non-traditional methods to disrupt criminal activity, enabling organizations to realize their visions.” By creating synergies with KCGS at the operational and strategic levels, UNODC reaffirms its commitment to partner with Member States, including Kenya, to tackle maritime crime.

For more information please contact:

Ms. Kazuyo Mitsuhashi (Kazuyo.Mitsuhashi@un.org)
Acting Programme Coordinator
Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea
Global Maritime Crime Programme
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime