ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire – Enhancing Africa’s response to transnational organised crime via criminal intelligence analysis is the focus of a meeting by senior police officials meeting under the ENACT project.
In an increasingly globalised world, Africa’s increasing stability and rising economic growth in recent decades has also conversely facilitated cross-border criminal activity across the continent. Over the last decade, there has been a marked increase in cross-border criminal activity in all parts of Africa.
To combat the rise of organised crime across the continent, adopting pro-active strategies to address cross-border crime, improve police investigations and exchange information are key issues for the 80 police officers from 27 countries from West, Central and North Africa at the two-day (20 and 21 June) meeting.
The conference was opened by the Inspector General of Police of Côte d’Ivoire, Youssouf Kouyaté, and Charles Girard, the Cooperation Attaché of Peace and Security Programmes of the EU Delegation to Côte d’Ivoire. Both Mr Kouyaté and Mr Girard stressed the importance of the ENACT project in helping countries in Africa fight transnational organised crime.
Topics have focused on the importance of criminal intelligence analysis when tackling organised crime in Africa which includes illicit arms flows, wildlife crime, cybercrime, terrorism, financial crime, human trafficking and drug trafficking.
Entitled Understanding and Countering Organised Crime in Africa with Criminal Intelligence Analysis, the meeting is also attended by experts and the European (EU) delegation to Côte d’Ivoire.
The ENACT project is the first of its kind to cover the entire African continent to analyse the scale of organised crime and its impact on security, governance and development. The analysis will serve as a basis for decision-makers and strengthened law enforcement cooperation at regional and continental levels.
INTERPOL’s role in the project is to assist police in Africa to adopt proactive strategies to combat organised crime threats, facilitate information exchange and improve their investigative skills, by:
- providing criminal analysis training and mentoring
- extending access to INTERPOL’s I-24/7 secure global police communications system in selected countries
- providing equipment to targeted countries to set up analytical units
- locating a criminal intelligence analyst at each of the four INTERPOL Regional Bureaus in Africa
- creating a secure analysis platform
- bringing together heads of analytical units across Africa.
About ENACT
ENACT is implemented by the Institute for Security Studies and INTERPOL, in affiliation with the Global Iniative against Transnational Organised Crime. For more, visit www.enact.africa.
The contents of this press release can in no way be taken to reflect the views or position of the European Union.
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