South Africa: UNODC Deputy Executive Director meets Minister of Home Affairs

Mr Aldo Lale-Demoz, Deputy Executive Director/Director of Division for Operations, meets H.E. Prof. Hlengiwe Mkhize, Minister of Home Affairs of South Africa15 May 2017 - Aldo Lale-Demoz, UNODC Deputy Executive Director/Director of Division for Operations met H.E. Prof. Hlengiwe Mkhize, a newly appointed Minister of Home Affairs of South Africa.

Having reiterated UNODC's commitment to the expansion of cooperation with the Department of Home Affairs, Mr Lale-Demoz informed the Minister on the progress in implementing Human Trafficking and Smuggling of Migrants project, launched in South Africa last year ( GLO.ACT).

He also briefed her on the UNODC border management and cross-border cooperation initiatives, which can be of relevance to South Africa.

The Minister expressed gratitude to UNODC for the support provided to the Department, and invited to explore possibilities for cooperation in supporting communities' resilience in addressing different types of crime. Active engagement of women's and youth groups, civil society organizations will secure communities' buy-in to the government's immigration and border control work.

Both sides agreed to explore additional venues for cooperation which would scale up awareness raising at the communities level, strengthen monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure sustainable impact of the technical assistance. UNODC and the Department of Home Affairs will also continue their cooperation under the Southern African Development Community (SADC) umbrella though ongoing regional projects and possible new cross-border cooperation initiatives.