As ENACT bids farewell, can Africa Center alumni sustain the fight against organized crime in Africa?

By Martin Ewi

February 13, 2026

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies is pleased to publish a guest-written article about local and regional partnerships by Mr. Martin Ewi, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies – Africa whose work has focused most recently on countering transnational organized crime for the “Enhancing African Capacity to Respond More Effectively to Transnational Organized Crime” (ENACT) project. With a long track record of working with the Africa Center, initially on counterterrorism programming and later on maritime security and countering organized crime programming as part of the socialization of the ENACT Organized Crime Index, Mr. Ewi has been a key player in the work that Africa Center and ISS-Africa have jointly done to empower African leaders and policymakers to catalyze strategic solutions to the security challenges that organized crime poses, both in and of itself and through its financing of terrorism and armed conflict. Links to past Africa Center professional development webinars about the ENACT Organized Crime Index can be found here.

The demise of the ENACT Project underscores the need for sustained action to harness the solid progress made in the fight against organized crime in Africa. For over nine years, the ENACT project championed the fight against transnational organized crime (TOC) in Africa exceeding all expectations. The project was conceived in 2016 with the generous funding from the European Union (EU) to support actions against priority crimes such as illegal migration, human trafficking and smuggling, drug trafficking and smuggling, arms trafficking and smuggling, and financial crimes. The project was implemented by a consortium of three institutions—the Institute for Security Studies (ISS-Africa), INTERPOL, and the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GITOC). Together, the three institutions brought a rare combination of comparative and complementary advantages in experience and expertise on research, policy, and capacity-building for security sector actors in Africa.

Designed as a multi-pronged facility to complement EU’s efforts and other programs to support continental, regional and national capacities to effectively combat TOC in Africa, ENACT became the first major, comprehensive and pan-African program of its kind dedicated solely to organized crime. It was unprecedented in scope and design, deviating from the hitherto piece-meal and ad hoc approaches that characterized studies and policy responses to organized crime in Africa. The principal problem was the absence of systematic data and evidence-based analyses that offered multidimensional and structural perspectives on the deep-rooted causes of organized crime in Africa. This eluded the continent of a holistic understanding of organized crime and the true extent of its penetration and impact on African states. Pervasive state ignorance, state negligence, and in most cases, state complicity in the spread of organized crime, contributed to minimalist, fragmented and weak policy responses to organized crime.

The foremost objective of the ENACT Project was to improve evidence-based knowledge, data, and analysis on organized crime with a view to enhance and its impact on governance, development, human security, and state fragility in Africa. Indeed, a key concern to the European Union was the adverse effect of organized crime on Africa’s economic development. From this perspective, ENACT had a developmental objective, as it was intended to mitigate this dynamic. This was particularly evident in the Project’s intention to strengthen awareness, strategic capacities, technical assistance, and cooperation among security sector actors, to include policymakers, and criminal justice actors, and relevant civil society and academic institutions.

As the Project comes to the point of its denouement, it is important that African states, Pan-African organizations, the Africa Center and other security sector actors, sustain the momentum generated by ENACT, by taking systematic and robust actions against transnational organized crime.

There were three key blueprints or what was referred to as ‘flagship products’ that constituted the Project outcome, all of which were new and unprecedented. The first was an African TOC Resource Hub, a dynamic and highly interactive website that provided a platform for interaction for policy practitioners and other actors involved in the fight against organized crime. With several million hits, the website provided the main platform for the publication of the Project’s research, data, news and other resources on transnational organized crime in Africa. The second was the Africa Organized Crime Index, a research and policy tool for measuring the prevalence, penetration, impact, and trends in organized crime, as well as state resilience. The third flagship feature of the Project was the Regional Organized Crime Observatories, manned by Regional Organized Crime Observatory Coordinators (ROCOs). The Observatories were set up in the five geopolitical regions in Africa to collect and publish data on organized crime. In addition to research and routine monitoring of their regions, the ROCOs also carried out stakeholder engagements who included policy makers, law enforcement, institutions in the criminal justice chain, civil society and private sector actors, regional and international organizations. Other flagship elements of the Project included Futures-oriented research on key organized crime issues in Africa, and event data-based studies on key organized crime issues on the continent.

In its nine-year timespan, ENACT achieved astonishing records. In the field of research and analyses. The Project published over 500 papers. This included 4 continental reports, 40 policy briefs, 64 research papers, 23 Interpol reports, 330 Observer pieces, 63 trend reports, 12 explainers, 4 miscellaneous papers, and 27 press releases. This rich knowledge repertoire illuminates various aspects of organized crime in Africa, particularly the continent’s fragility, the development and flow of criminal markets, their prevalence, emerging trends and harm, as well as their congruence with other forms of criminality such as terrorism and violent extremism. It also takes stock of and evaluates the continent’s responses and makes recommendations for addressing challenges and strengthening resilience against organized crime.

ENACT’s empirical studies, particularly the key findings of the observatories and the analyses of the Africa Organized Crime Index–published for the first time in 2019 and updated every two years, with its last iteration in 2025, show beyond doubt that organized crime is more prevalent and pervasive in Africa than ever imagined. No single sector has been spared and every aspect of life that is monetizable has been captured. The actors are diverse and enjoy impunity. The continent forms an important hub in the global network. One key recurrent theme is corruption, which plays a central role, as the currency and the primary vehicle that enables the flows of organized crime globally.

The contribution of the Index to the discourse on organized crime in Africa is the operational definition of what constitute organized crime. The Index classifies or categorizes organized crime into 15 broad criminal markets, which, together with criminal actors, are used to measure criminality. The Index also measures resilience, which evaluates measures and mechanisms put in place by states to combat or prevent organized crime. The relationship between criminality and resilience provides a comprehensive framework for determining the exact source of state fragility and vulnerability to organized crime. Reflecting on these implications, Dr. Luka Biong Deng, a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at the Africa Center and a member of the ENACT’s Expert Advisory Board, emphasized during the launch of the 2025 Organized Crime Index in Nairobi: “The trajectory that we see in the Africa Organized Crime Index is a stark signal: when criminality expands in tandem with weakened state responses, security governance is eroded at its very core. To confront this challenge, African states and regional bodies must embrace a holistic, people-centered approach that bridges security, development, and governance – not only to contain organized crime but to rebuild trust between citizens and the state.”

ENACT was not designed as other projects, which focus only on pointing out the problem and offer no solution. In this context, ENACT has played a catalytic role in enhancing states’ capabilities to effectively combat organized crime. As indicated earlier, capacity-building and technical assistance were key components of the ENACT Project. In this area, the Project also set a solid record. During its lifespan, the Project undertook 145 events including 45 training interventions (regional workshops, national workshops, interregional workshops, field training exercises), in which nearly 8 300 law enforcement officers from 54 African countries participated. Of the 145 events, 100 comprised seminars, roundtables, validation meetings and other colloquiums (virtual, hybrid, and in person), in which 3 279 people attended. To strengthen sensitization and awareness on various organized crime issues, the Project produced over 90 videos and documentaries, which reached the breadth and depth of the continent.

Through the past work that Africa Center alumni have done to apply insights from the ENACT Project’s research to their own countries’ strategies and policies on these issues, they can use the Africa Center’s alumni community chapters and the “communities of interest” for countering transnational organized crime, countering terrorism, and ensuring maritime security to continue generating knowledge of good practices and sharing critical information to share burdens and address these formidable security challenges.

The Project supported various counter organized crime initiatives of Pan-African organizations including the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Economic Community of Central African States, the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, the Community of Sahelo-Saharan States, the Intergovernmental Authority for Development, the East African Community, and regional police cooperation organizations such as the Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organization, the Central Africa Police Chiefs Committee, the West Africa Police Chiefs Committee, and the Southern Africa Regional Police Chiefs Cooperation Organization. The Project assisted these organizations in elaborating various organized crime reports, and legal and policy instruments including protocols, strategies, and resolutions to legislate and counter various aspects of transnational organized crime. Key among them include the Revised Mifugo Protocol for the Prevention, Combating and Eradication of Cattle Rustling in Eastern Africa (2021); Draft Interregional Agreement on Cooperation on Police and Criminal Matters between West and Central Africa (2018); Interregional Agreement on Cooperation on Police and Criminal Matters between Eastern and Central Africa (2021); Revised SADC Protocol on Firearms (2019); the Integrated Strategy to Prevent and Combat Transnational Organized Crime in the SADC Region (2021), and its Implementation Action Plan 2022 – 2026; and an Organized Crime Regional Threat Assessment for Central Africa (2024).

In light of these significant achievements, ENACT laid a solid foundation for future work on countering transnational organized crime in Africa. As the Project comes to the point of its denouement, it is important that African states, Pan-African organizations, the Africa Center and other security sector actors, sustain the momentum generated by ENACT, by taking systematic and robust actions against transnational organized crime. This calls on the ACSS alumni to take on more responsibilities, and do more in countering transnational organized crime, terrorism, and maritime insecurity in Africa. The ENACT Organized Crime Index has been a key component of various ACSS’ flagship programs including the Emerging Security Sector Leaders Seminar.

Many Africa Center alumni have also learned about the ENACT Organized Crime Index and participated in workshops jointly organized by the ISS-Africa and the Africa Center since 2021, which have focused on practically applying key components of the Index to identify how to mobilize African countries’ state and societal tools to counter the trafficking of drugs, arms, and people – as well as the trafficking of rare hardwoods, artisanal minerals, and other natural resources. These criminal markets often “converge” as they impact global security and the global economy, with criminal actors often making use of more than one market at a time to boost profit, undermining the efforts of security sector actors, particularly those responsible for securing state borders.

Through the past work that Africa Center alumni have done to apply insights from the ENACT Project’s research to their own countries’ strategies and policies on these issues, they can use the Africa Center’s alumni community chapters and the “communities of interest” for countering transnational organized crime, countering terrorism, and ensuring maritime security to continue generating knowledge of good practices and sharing critical information to share burdens and address these formidable security challenges. In February 2025, the Africa Center and the ISS-Africa signed a Memorandum of Academic Agreement (MOAA), which propels the two institutions to work more together to address human security challenges in Africa.

The Africa Center is happy to connect the author with any alumni or community members who know of funding sources for the continuation of ENACT work on the Organized Crime Index and related initiatives.