Honduras to Modernize National Police with IDB Support

The Inter-American Development Bank approved a $50 million loan to Honduras to strengthen its national police in order to help reduce crime rates in the country. 

The Program for Comprehensive Modernization and Professionalization for the National Police Services in Honduras will enhance the system for strategic management of human resources, with an emphasis on modernizing the officer training system.

Since 2012, Honduras has been taking steps to modernize its police force with IDB support, and the results attest to the success of these initiatives. For example, the homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants dropped from 86.5 in 2011 to 38.04 in 2022, the lowest rate in the last decade. Likewise, citizen confidence in the national police rose from 19% in 2011 to 27% in 2020.

However, the efforts to advance an effective police reform still need to continue strengthening the institutions that lead citizen security, to build on the last decade of advances and ensure the sustainability of those results.

The program, that was approved by the IDB's Executive Board of Directors, revolves around two components. The first will focus on modernizing the police force to improve the coverage and quality of services for citizens. The second aims to modernize police training and professionalization, using a competencies- and skills-based approach.

The program will fund the design of a complete police human resources planning and management strategy, with elements such as updating the personnel recruitment model to expand geographic coverage and improve demographic representativeness, and overhauling the existing system for police wellness, incorporating mental health programs to enhance motivation, the work environment and work-life balance, with a gender perspective.

It will also finance a redesign of academic training programs to align them with a community policing model. Likewise, the program will provide resources to set up a system for training police instructors, as well as for renovating the physical infrastructure for police training, among other actions.

In addition to benefiting Honduran citizens in general by lowering their exposure to crime, the program will directly benefit more than 25,000 officers in the police force, including the 1,000 new police officers per year at the Technical Police Institute and 800 officers at the National Police Academy.

Of the $50 million IDB loan to Honduras, $32.5 million is ordinary capital, with a repayment term of 25 years, a grace period of 5.5 years, and an interest rate based on the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR). The remaining $17.5 million is concessional capital, with a repayment term and grace period of 40 years and an interest rate of 0.25%.

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