20 Jun 2011 - The United Nations, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as well as Ministers of Interior or Justice of Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone reiterated today their commitment to jointly fight the scourge of drug trafficking and organized crime in West Africa, on the occasion of the inaugural session of the High-Level Policy Committee of the West Africa Coast Initiative (WACI POLCOM).

 The first WACI POLCOM - chaired by Mr. Said Djinnit, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for West Africa - aims at setting the strategic direction of the joint initiative supporting the ECOWAS Regional Action Plan to address the growing problem of illicit trafficking, organized crime and drug abuse in West Africa. The meeting was attended by WACI partners as well as the UN Peace Missions assisting the Governments of the pilot countries, namely DSRSG Gana Fofang and the Minister of Justice of Guinea-Bissau. High-level representatives from the Peace Building support Office (PBSO), the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU) also attended the meeting.

The WACI POLCOM reviewed the achievements and challenges of WACI's implementation in the pilot countries and welcomed progress made in the development of Transnational Crime Units (TCUs) in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea Bissau. Delays in the implementation in Côte d'Ivoire were attributed to the recent post-electoral crisis. The WACI POLCOM therefore decided to launch a new assessment mission to Cote d'Ivoire, taking the new political context into account, with a view to hastening the implementation process of the TCU. The participants also agreed to invite Guinea to join the Initiative as the fifth country.

The participants welcomed the commitment of ECOWAS authorities in mobilizing West African countries in the fight against transnational organized crime and underlined the importance of the close collaboration with WACI. The POLCOM adopted a set of recommendations including the holding of a donor conference to gain wide international financial support to concrete WACI activities, in direct support to implementation of the ECOWAS Action Plan. The sub-region is recognized as a transit route for the cocaine trafficking from Latin America to Europe as well as a hub for counterfeit medicines, cigarette smuggling and other crimes, which pose a serious threat to peace and security in the sub-region and constitutes an impediment to development.

The West Africa Coast Initiative (WACI) was jointly launched in 2009 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), the UN Department of Political Affairs (DPA)/UN Office for West Africa (UNOWA) and INTERPOL.

WACI is a response to the need to adopt a multi-stakeholders approach to support the ECOWAS regional action plan to address the growing problem of illicit trafficking, organized crime and drug abuse in West Africa. Capitalizing on the presence of UN missions, WACI has been initiated in four pilot countries also considered as priority affected countries by ECOWAS i.e. Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI), Guinea Bissau (UNIOGBIS), Liberia (UNMIL) and Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL). The objective is to expand the initiative to other West African countries. (Source: UNOWA)