From 8 to 9 July 2025, GS-Foundation joined partners across Moldova to take a closer look at how to institutionalize drone use in the public sector. Not just in policy, but in practice.

Over the course of these days, we worked with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the General Police Inspectorate (GPI), the National Inspectorate of Public Security (INSP), and the Police Academy to develop practical, long-term solutions. The goal: build a public drone system that’s structured, sustainable and locally owned.

Setting the Course: MIA Workshop on Training Needs

Our journey started with a national workshop hosted with the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), aimed at identifying concrete training needs for drone pilots across public institutions. Together, we defined key challenges such as certification gaps, inter-agency coordination, and fragmented training systems.

The result is a clear roadmap to a Train-the-Trainer programme.

Thanks to contributions from Valentin Cioclea and Sebastian Rohde, the session remained grounded in operational realities and guided by practical experience.

On the Ground: GPI and INSP

At the General Police Inspectorate and its National Inspectorate of Public Security, we met drone technicians and leadership teams who are already doing a lot with very little. The department is well equipped — but with only a handful of full-time pilots and no mobile ground stations, operations are stretched.

Looking Ahead: Drone Education at the Police Academy

The final meeting focused on long-term training architecture. In a strategy meeting with the Moldovan Police Academy, a modular education model was confirmed: basic drone instruction for new learners, followed by advanced specialization. The GS-F will support the process.

To support this, GS-Foundation will provide sample curricula from German state police academies. The Academy will first gather needs from all MIA subdivisions to ensure a bottom-up process.

A Shared Commitment to Sustainability

Across all three institutions, one theme kept coming up: the need for systems, not just skills. Moldova is building drone capacity in a way that is structured, inclusive and institutionally anchored. We are proud to support that process.

This project is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.