2023 West Africa organised crime resilience framework – foundational report

This report sets out the organised crime and security landscape across the West African region.

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While West Africa is a vibrant and diverse region, it faces a range of organised crime and other security-related threats. This OCRF foundational report sets out the organized crime and security landscape across the region, identifying the key risks and vulnerabilities in West African states, as well as providing a nuanced analysis of states’ resilience. Three deep dives focus on informing and assessing existing responses and gearing these towards prevention.


About the authors

Lyes Tagziria is a senior analyst at the GI-TOC. He has researched a wide range of illicit economies globally, is the editor of the Observatory of Illicit Economies in West Africa’s quarterly Risk Bulletin and was previously a senior member of the GI- TOC’s Organized Crime Index team.

Lucia Bird Ruiz Benitez de Lugo is the director of the Observatory of Illicit Economies in West Africa at the GI-TOC. Lucia’s work focuses on the intersection of illicit economies, conflict and instability, and she previously worked as a legal and policy adviser to the Punjab Government, Pakistan and the Ministry of Finance, Ghana.

Image: © Benson Ibeabuchi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Development partners
This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union and the German Federal Foreign Office under the OCWAR-T project. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the German Federal Foreign Office. The ISS is also grateful for support from the members of the ISS Partnership Forum: the Hanns Seidel Foundation, the European Union, the Open Society Foundations and the governments of Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
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