Support to Transnational Crime Units under the West Africa Coast Initiative



Contract partner: UNODC - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime - Abt. UNODC/CPS und Abt. UNOC/FRMS Country: Subsahara-Afrika, regional/länderübergreifend Funding amount: € 750.000,00 Project start: 01.12.2013 End: 30.06.2017

Short Description:

Overall goal


The scale of criminal activities such as transnational organized crime and in particular illicit trafficking of drugs, small arms and light weapons and other goods, seriously threaten any efforts to stabilize and develop political and social institutions in West Africa.

In order to significantly improve this situation and to secure peace and security in the region, the West African Coast Initiative (WACI), within the context of the ECOWAS Action Plan to Address the Growing Problem of Illicit Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime and Drug Abuse in West Africa, strives to create Transnational Crime Units (TCU) to enhance national and international coordination and to enable intelligence-based investigations. TCU will be inter-agency units which coordinate and support the action of law enforcement agencies against illicit drug trafficking and organized crime groups.

The project develops linkages with ongoing national, regional, bilateral and multilateral actions conducted in West Africa. Specifically it supports selected ECOWAS member states (Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone) and the ECOWAS region at large in their implementation of the ECOWAS Action Plan.

Project outcomes at the country level are (i) The creation of 5 TCUs as central national enforcement units in the mentioned countries; and (ii) Functioning and operational TCUs staffed from various enforcement agencies, with well-trained officers and required equipment to carry out their operations.

As a result an increase in cases investigated and persons prosecuted is expected (e.g. more than 270 cases annually in Sierra Leone).

At the regional level, the key project outcome is an increased exchange of information and intelligence among ECOWAS member states, between member states and the ECOWAS Commission, and the creation of interconnected national inter-agency units with increased capacity to fight against illicit drug trafficking and organized crime in an international framework.

project number 2601-02/2013
source of funding OEZA
sector Frieden und Sicherheit
tied
modality
marker
  • Policy marker: are used to identify, assess and facilitate the monitoring of activities in support of policy objectives concerning gender equality, aid to environment, participatory development/good governance, trade development and reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Activities targeting the objectives of the Rio Conventions include the identification of biodiversity, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and desertification.
    • 1= policy is a significant objective of the activity
    • 2= policy is the principal objective of the activity
  • Donor/ source of funding: The ADA is not only implementing projects and programmes of the Austrian Development Cooperation , but also projects funded from other sources and donors such as
    • AKF - Foreign Disaster Fund of the Austrian federal government
    • BMLFUW - Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water
    • EU - Funds of the European Commission
    • Others - various other donors are listed in ADA’s annual business report.
  • Type of Aid – Aid modalities: classifies transfers from the donor to the first recipient of funds such as budget support, core contributions and pooled programmes and funds to CSOs and multilateral organisations, project-type interventions, experts and other technical assistance, scholarships and student costs in donor countries, debt relief, administrative costs and other in-donor expenditures.
  • Purpose/ sector code: classifies the specific area of the recipient’s economic or social structure, funded by a bilateral contribution.
  • Tied/Untied: Untied aid is defined as loans and grants whose proceeds are fully and freely available to finance procurement from all OECD countries and substantially all developing countries. Transactions are considered tied unless the donor has, at the time of the aid offer, clearly specified a range of countries eligible for procurement which meets the tests for “untied” aid.
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