Malaga, 13 March 2019. At the Fifteenth Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) Coordinating Committee in Malaga that is taking place from 13-14 March 2019, the Netherlands launched a Policy Toolkit developed by the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) with the view of operationalizing the GCTF The Hague Good Practices on the Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism. The toolkit provides local practitioners, policymakers and other governmental experts with a practical tool for the use and implementation of the Good Practices to address the challenge of the Nexus in various regions.
The Policy Toolkit is aimed at supporting concerned Member States in better understanding and addressing the nexus between transnational organized crime and terrorism.
The Toolkit is the latest achievement of the Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism Initiative, which UNICRI has been working on, in partnership with the Netherlands under the auspices of the GCTF. The Initiative foresaw the organization of four regional meetings, involving representatives from governments, academia, international experts and practitioners; and international and regional organizations, to discuss and share knowledge on the different regional contexts. Each meeting addressed strategies to tackle the Nexus in three main areas: research and information sharing, local engagement, and capacity building and law enforcement.
From the information and data gathered during the meetings, UNICRI developed the GCTF The Hague Good Practices on the Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism that were endorsed at the Ninth GCTF Ministerial Plenary Meeting in New York in September 2018, and presented at the United Nations Security Council open briefing of the Counter-Terrorism Committee on the Terror-Crime Nexus in October 2018.
This Nexus Policy Toolkit was designed to further aid practitioners, policymakers and other governmental experts to formulate responses to address the nexus, and to translate the Good Practices into concrete actions. More specifically, the Toolkit will help Member States, International, regional and national organizations to better understand this evolving phenomenon, and provide them with guidance on how to respond to the links between organized crime and terrorism. Furthermore, the Toolkit includes definitions and watch points that facilitate the monitoring of the nexus in different regions.
UNICRI is now planning to carry out two pilot trainings to test the Toolkit in different Member States.