The United Nations anti-crime agency, UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is supporting efforts to rebuild a safe and stable Guinea-Bissau by facilitating the construction of a training centre for the West African nation’s security forces.
The UNODC Regional Office for Brazil and the Southern Cone has facilitated an agreement between Brazil and Guinea-Bissau to create a police academy, which will not only boost the latter’s forces but also support its Government to implement the National Plan to Fight Drugs and Crime.
Guinea-Bissau, which faced a brutal civil war during the late 1990s, has become the hub of a new cocaine trafficking route from South America via West Africa to supply the growing demand for illegal drugs in Europe, according to the UNODC.
– There is an urgent need to tackle organized crime – in the broader context of security sector reform – and to strengthen administration of justice and the rule of law, the agency stated.
Last November, a senior UN official warned the Security Council that while the prospects for political stability in Guinea-Bissau appear to be good, they are threatened by drug trafficking and organized crime.
