Transnational organized crime (TOC) is a growing security threat in African countries, with criminal activity on the continent increasingly linked to global networks involved in narcotics, arms, natural resources, and human trafficking. African militaries and police are keen to break the connections between organized crime and its financing of purveyors of violence, including armed groups and terrorist organizations. However, the perpetrators of organized crime continue to nimbly adapt to African security sector efforts to detect and disrupt trafficking. Criminal syndicates, often enabled by state-embedded actors, reinforce one another to exploit cross-border differences in African countries’ economies and deterrence mechanisms for organized crime.
African states are frequently confronted with the challenge of coordinating joint strategic actions among military, police, and justice officials, while also working with local leaders and supranational bodies to respond effectively. As a result, there is a need for defense and security actors to develop and apply solutions that generate swifter and more effective interagency and cross-border coordination to counter the activities of transnational criminal organizations.
The Africa Center’s Countering Transnational Organized Crime program provides a trusted platform for senior-level professionals to engage in peer learning and experience sharing on the political economy of TOC in Africa, as well as on the design and implementation of state responses to TOC from the community to the continental level. Activities frequently focus on:
- Enhance coordination and information sharing among military and civilian actors to foster a shared understanding of criminal networks, trafficking routes, and illicit markets.
- Strengthen practitioners’ ability to use open-source research and empirical data to analyze the drivers and patterns of transnational organized crime in Africa, its linkages to terrorism and insurgency, and its implications for defense and security strategy and policy.
- Identify the common challenges faced by military, law enforcement, and judicial actors in countering transnational organized crime, and explore practical approaches to improving interagency and cross-border coordination.
- Support security officials in leveraging all tools of national power, including security, economic, governance, and diplomatic instruments, to design and implement integrated responses to transnational organized crime.
Enhancing Forest Domain Awareness in Central Africa
Experts Roundtable, November 19-21, 2024
Coordinating Security Sector Responses to Counter Illegal Logging
Multinational Program, Libreville, Gabon, July 2023
Border Governance Approaches to Countering Transnational Organized Crime
Academic Webinar Series, 2022–2023
Enhancing Security-Justice Coordination to Counter Transnational Organized Crime
Virtual Academic Program, October–November 2021
Professional Development for Countering Transnational Organized Crime
Webinar Series, October 2020 – July 2021
Enhancing Security-Justice Coordination to Counter Transnational Organized Crime
Virtual Academic Program, February 9 – March 3, 2021
Countering Transnational Organized Crime Seminar, January 2020
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