UN, Partners Collaborate Against Drugs, Crime

Abimbola Akosile

23 June 2011

United Nations officials, government ministers and representatives of Interpol have pledged to work together in the fight against drug trafficking and organised crime in West Africa, which has become a key transit point for the shipment of cocaine from Latin America to Europe.

At a meeting in Dakar, Senegal, participants discussed how to streamline their efforts against drugs and crime in the region, with the production of counterfeit medicines and the smuggling of cigarettes also identified as major problems, a UN release disclosed.

The inaugural session of the High-Level Policy Committee of the West Africa Coast Initiative was chaired by Said Djinnit, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for West Africa. The meeting followed a regional action plan adopted in 2009 with the aim of tackling illicit trafficking, organised crime and drug abuse among locals.

That plan was as result of a report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which revealed that the value of illicit flows in the region sometimes surpassed the countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Cigarette smuggling in West Africa, for example, generates about $775 million, more than the GDP of the Gambia, while the trade in counterfeit anti-malarial tablets surpasses the GDP of Guinea-Bissau.

The meeting reviewed recent initiatives in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau and also discussed the impact of the recent post-election crisis in Côte d’Ivoire.

The attendees included representatives of the UN, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU) and Interpol, as well as justice or interior ministers from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

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