WHAT IS THE GLOBAL INITIATIVE?
The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime is a network of prominent law enforcement, governance and development practitioners who are dedicated to seeking new and innovative strategies and responses to organized crime.
While the organisation has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, our work is conducted across the globe and employees are based in and often travel to various locations, giving the Global Initiative broad coverage of the parts of the world where organised crime’s impact is most severe. In addition to the Headquarters, the organisation has 3 more offices in: Austria, South Africa and Malta. The Global Initiative Network and Board are globally representative.
GI-TOC MISSION STATEMENT
To enhance analysis of, encourage action against, and support resilience to organized crime in order to reduce its negative impact on people, the environment, businesses and states.
NATURE OF THE CHALLENGE
The problem of organized crime is not new, the scope, scale and spread of the phenomena is unprecedented – affecting all countries, development, middle-income and developing, as well as states beset by political instability and conflict. The impacts can be diverse, but the common feature is that organized crime negatively affects the life chances of ordinary people: it undercuts key institutions, damages the environment, distorts or impedes economic growth and it fuels conflict.
While there is growing consensus as to the rapid evolution and detrimental impact of organized crime, there is much less agreement around what constitutes an effective response.
CATALYZING A NEW APPROACH
The Global Initiative was born from a series of high-level, off the record discussions between mainly (though not exclusively) law enforcement officials from both developed and developing countries in New York in 2011-12. At these meetings, the founding members of the Global Initiative, many of whom stand at the front line of the fight against organized crime, illicit trafficking and trade, concluded that the problem and its impacts are not well analyzed; they are not systematically integrated into national plans or strategies; existing multilateral tools are not structured to facilitate a response and existing forms of cooperation tend to be bilateral, slow and restricted to a limited number of like-minded states.
The result was a decision to create a new initiative: the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, which would seek to provide a platform to promote greater debate and innovative approaches as the building blocks to an inclusive global strategy against organized crime.
As an organisation, we have grown rapidly, with an increasing diversity of thematic and geographic projects and programmes, and a broader range of partners.
We find ourselves on an exciting journey, that is hopefully adding value to the work of multilateral institutions, governments and civil society across the globe.
For more information, please see our website at www.globalinitiative.net.