Fight Against Trafficking from and to Afghanistan with ECO Member States

Project description

Title: Fight Against Trafficking from and to Afghanistan with ECO Member States
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI)
Financier: European Commission
Country: egional project involving ECO member states: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; Focal countries: Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan.
Overall term: 2008 to 2013

Context

Afghanistan continues to be the world’s largest producer of opium. This has a dramatic impact on the countries of the region around Afghanistan which lie on the drug trafficking routes and are affected not only by the transit of drugs, especially those destined for Europe, but also by the rising numbers of their own drug addicts. The cultivation and trans-regional trafficking of opiates is closely linked to organised crime. Cross-border corruption, arms trafficking and money laundering are destabilising the entire region. To limit the extent of the illegal drugs trade along the known transport routes, it is necessary not only to reduce opium production in Afghanistan but also to build up the regional cooperation amongst the affected countries.

The project to fight trafficking from and to Afghanistan is being financed by the European Commission. GIZ is coordinating the intervention on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI). Partners in the project are the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) and Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). The main cooperation partner is the Drug and Organized Crime Coordination Unit (DOCCU) of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). ECO is a joint initiative of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and the five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Objective

The stability of the region and the security and health of the population living in the countries along the heroin routes have been strengthened.

Approach

The principal focus of the project is on Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. It assists the ECO member states with the identification, documentation and prosecution of all drug-related incidents. To this end it is providing capacity building support in the fields of forensics, information dissemination and border controls. The DOCCU is expected to collate and evaluate the data acquired, and to make it available to all ECO member states through regular reports.

The project has three areas of focus:

  • Strengthening the communication, analysis and investigation capacities of the receiving states, for the fight against drug trafficking and international organised crime
  • Promotion of regional cooperation among relevant authorities and institutions
  • Capacity building support for the DOCCU as a distributor of information and as a coordination platform for the member states for issues related to drug trafficking and organised crime.