Among the three finalists for the 2020 United Nations Police Officer Prize is Rebecca Nnanga, Cameroonian police commissioner, and head of the recruitment cell at the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic –Minusca.

According to the UN-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix  “By her words and her actions, the United Nations police officer Rebecca Nnanga illustrates the best of the United Nations police".

It is due to her exemplary services that she has been selected for this recognition, according to the release from the UN.

In the recent years with increase in the number and percentage of women, Commissioner Rebecca Nnanga under the UN has been supportive in the recruitment of 1,000 people for the internal security forces of the Central African Republic – CAR, according to the press release published on October 30th, 2020 on the UN website.

For the vulnerable people, survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, Commissioner Nnanga has equally provided assistance. She has equally provided opportunities for local women to acquire modern professional skills, the release also revealed.

It was in 2010 that Commissioner Nnanga joined the police force in Cameroon. As a UN police officer, who has already participated in United Nations peacekeeping operations in Haiti from 2011 -2014 and in CAR from 2015-2016, the Cameroonian Commissioner has already been able to gain extensive experience in this field.

It should be noted that this year, twenty-one women, out of 1,400 female police officers deployed in UN peacekeeping operations, were nominated.

Zambian Chief Inspector, Doreen Malambo, Gender Advisor at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan-Minuss was winner of the UN Policewoman of the Year.

Created in 2011, the United Nations Police Officer Prize is an award aims to establish a role model for women police officers serving in peace operations and to promote the UN Secretary General’s Gender Parity Strategy and DPKO’s Uniformed Gender Parity Strategy through encouraging Member-States to deploy more female police officers to peacekeeping and special political missions.