Mali and UNODC, working through its Regional Office for West and Central Africa (ROSEN) based in Dakar and the Terrorism Prevention Branch (TPB), has in recent years reinforced their cooperation for strengthening Mali's capabilities for undertaking effective criminal justice measures against terrorism in compliance with the rule of law.
These partnership efforts are part of UNODC's contribution to the United Nations Integrated Strategy for the Sahel region. They focus on providing capacity-building support to national criminal justice system entities in charge of carrying out investigation, prosecution and adjudication of terrorism-related cases.
As part of this cooperation, most recently, from 17 to 19 January 2017, UNODC organized a national training workshop on interagency cooperation in terrorism cases. Held in Bamako, this workshop was the second in a series of three training workshops, all three made possible through co-financing from the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) and the UNODC Sahel Programme, funded by several donors.
The first workshop, held also in Bamako in September 2016, was tailored to Mali's Specialized Judicial Unit and focused on issues pertaining to international cooperation in criminal matters. The second workshop was tailored to the newly established Specialized Law Enforcement Unit against Terrorism and the Specialized Judicial Unit. Both units have the monopoly for handling terrorism cases in Mali. This event sought to increase the capacity and readiness of criminal justice officials to cooperate across various agencies in the criminal justice system in charge of terrorism cases, so as to conduct investigations more effectively. The third workshop, scheduled on 14-16 February 2017, will target these two same units and expand the issues covered to include the connections between organized crime and terrorism.
