United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

The UNODC Regional Office in East Africa (ROEA)

Fostering Cross-Regional Cooperation to Prevent and Counter Terrorism

Maputo (Mozambique), 7 November – Against the backdrop of climate emergency and slow economic recovery, countries in Africa remain acutely concerned with the cross-border spread of terrorist violence. Extremists and terrorists threaten to tilt the precarious security balance and derail peaceful development, making the lives of millions worse.

To support countries in Eastern and Southern Africa tackle this threat, UNODC together with its partners in two regions - the Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organization (EAPPCO) and its Counter-Terrorism Centre of Excellence (CTCoE), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) organized a cross-regional workshop in Maputo, Mozambique, hosted by the Office of the Attorney-General of the Republic of Mozambique (PGR). 

Attended by forty law enforcement officials from fourteen countries in both regions, the workshop stimulated the exchange of good practices and information to enhance cooperation.

Participants learned from the Northern and Western Africa experience in establishing judiciary and law enforcement cooperation networks facilitating direct peer-to-peer contact between investigators and prosecutors working on terrorism-related cases. Bringing an array of experts from within the continent and beyond, the workshop presented examples of effectively streamlining cross-border investigations.

Understanding the threat picture is equally important. At the margins of the workshop, the EAPCCO CTCoE launched a new publication exploring the linkages between terrorist groups in Eastern and Southern Africa. “Links between terrorist organizations exist on an individual and group levels,” explains Dr. Anneli Botha, a terrorism prevention expert and the author of the publication, “with the local groups deriving a number of benefits from association with, or allegiance to the established terrorist groups.” Allegiance means training, intensified movement of fighters, and finances – “threats that cannot be taken on by any single country alone and which require initiative-taking preventive action, intensified cooperation, and strengthening of the border management measures,” concludes Dr. Botha.

The workshop resulted in the adoption of a set of recommendations for the consideration of the EAPCCO and SADC respective technical organs. The recommendations focus on harmonizing the national and regional legislative frameworks, multi-agency cooperation, mainstreaming gender dimensions, and strengthening the collaboration between the EAPCCO CTCoE and the SADC Regional Counter-Terrorism Centre (RCTC).

The workshop and Issue Paper launch was delivered within the framework of UNODC projects funded by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany on Supporting the EAPPCO and its Regional Counter-Terrorism Centre of Excellence to Prevent and Counter Terrorism and Transnational Organized Crime in Eastern Africaand on Assisting Mozambique to Strengthen Rule of Law-based Criminal Justice Responses to Terrorism and Violent Extremism (Phase III). 

For more information, please contact:

Ms Carine Giraldou (carine.giraldou@un.org)
Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer
UNODC Regional Office for Eastern Africa