Hidden Narratives of Transnational Organised Crime in West Africa
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bristol
Department Name: Sch for Policy Studies
Abstract
This project asks whether crime of a transnational and organised form exists in West Africa, and investigates the understandings of it held by people on both sides of the line between crime and control. The project assumes that the ways criminal and state actors speak about and understand their roles, i.e. their 'narratives', provides a helpful entry point into a better understanding of the everyday reality of participating in and seeking to counter criminal activities. The project is built on the investigators' observation that much of our understanding of transnational organised crime (TNOC) in West Africa is based on official reports, statistics and other largely detached assessments about this phenomenon. Using the cases of drug trafficking and people smuggling, the project seeks to uncover the 'hidden narratives' of TNOC in West Africa in order to better understand the practices around TNOC. The project asks three overarching research questions in this regard: (1) Is there such as thing as TNOC in West Africa? (2) What are the local narratives and understandings around it? And finally, (3) how useful are our conceptual tools for understanding TNOC in this regional context?
This is a particularly timely project given that the case study cities of Agadez (Niger) and Lagos (Nigeria) are sites through which rapidly evolving flows are passing: in Agadez, thousands of irregular migrants transit on their way to Libya and Europe, while in Lagos new and old forms of drug trafficking including opioids satisfy local consumption but also markets in North America and Europe. This project will focus on media reporting about TNOC but supplement these with unofficial or informal narratives from state actors (e.g. policymakers, law enforcement officials), as well as what we call 'market insiders' (e.g. smugglers, traffickers). This data will be analysed by focusing on common threads about how these actors understand their work, their relation to the other side of the crime/control divide, and the legality and ethics of their work. The project also seeks to connect these micro-level narratives to draw conclusions about the broader governance of TNOC in West Africa and explore how a rethinking of TNOC in the light of the uncovered narratives can help to inform and improve related policies in West Africa and beyond.
This is a particularly timely project given that the case study cities of Agadez (Niger) and Lagos (Nigeria) are sites through which rapidly evolving flows are passing: in Agadez, thousands of irregular migrants transit on their way to Libya and Europe, while in Lagos new and old forms of drug trafficking including opioids satisfy local consumption but also markets in North America and Europe. This project will focus on media reporting about TNOC but supplement these with unofficial or informal narratives from state actors (e.g. policymakers, law enforcement officials), as well as what we call 'market insiders' (e.g. smugglers, traffickers). This data will be analysed by focusing on common threads about how these actors understand their work, their relation to the other side of the crime/control divide, and the legality and ethics of their work. The project also seeks to connect these micro-level narratives to draw conclusions about the broader governance of TNOC in West Africa and explore how a rethinking of TNOC in the light of the uncovered narratives can help to inform and improve related policies in West Africa and beyond.
Planned Impact
Our research has a wide range of beneficiaries and a broad audience, especially as organised crime in West Africa and related policy is much debated at present. Given there is a lack of empirical research on organised crime and the illicit flows that this is part of in West Africa, a project exploring this link will offer a foundation for a better understanding of organised crime in the subregion, as well as for devising better policy towards it in West Africa and beyond.
(1) The project will be of immense interest to policy makers. We have planned in close links with relevant agencies from across West Africa and particularly in the two case study countries, such as Nigeria's drug law enforcement (NDLEA) and anti-trafficking (NAPTIP) agencies and Niger's agency against human trafficking (ANLTP), as well as with the UK National Crime Agency. Regional and international organisations with a strong policy interest in organised crime in the region will also be direct beneficiaries of our project, such as the UNODC, Interpol and EU agencies. The regional UNODC representative office has already expressed its interest in our project and has agreed to be part of the project advisory board.
(2) Activists, workers in the charity and NGO sectors involved in criminal justice, drug policy and migration, will benefit from our research. The West African CLEEN Foundation and Centre for Research and Information on Drug Abuse (CRISA) are central actors in this field of NGOs and activists on the continent. The Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (Geneva) and RUSI's Strategic Hub for Organised Crime Research (London) will also be key beneficiaries.
(3) Third, there is also a significant interest in organised and illicit flows and related policy among the wider public, and our project on two of the most common illicit flows within West Africa promises to further spark increased debate on policy and the role of organised crime in African countries. The project will seek the widest platforms for engaging this public through working with media and disseminating its findings online and through key social media.
Our project has a three-pronged strategy designed to ensure maximum engagement with the widest possible number of beneficiaries. First, the project will be guided by an advisory board constituted not just by academics, but also by policy makers and activists, for instance by Etannibi Alemika, head of the CLEEN Foundation and Prof Mark Shaw, director of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, both of them among Africa's foremost crime and security policy experts working closely with key organisations, such as UNODC and the African Union.
Second, two workshops will be held over the course of the project, which will recruit widely from among our key audiences and beneficiaries, such as a methods and policy workshop in Lagos in the first phase of the project and a second larger workshop at York on new directions in organsied crime research in the global South.
Third, we will disseminate the research findings through two policy papers, which will be designed with the direct input of key beneficiaries and tailored to their policy needs. They will be made available at the York workshop, on our project website and widely disseminated through social media and policy mailing lists. In addition to the methods mentioned above, we will offer opportunities for stakeholders to directly engage with our project through our project team's presence in Ibadan and Lagos - the latter one of Africa's key media and civil society hubs.
(1) The project will be of immense interest to policy makers. We have planned in close links with relevant agencies from across West Africa and particularly in the two case study countries, such as Nigeria's drug law enforcement (NDLEA) and anti-trafficking (NAPTIP) agencies and Niger's agency against human trafficking (ANLTP), as well as with the UK National Crime Agency. Regional and international organisations with a strong policy interest in organised crime in the region will also be direct beneficiaries of our project, such as the UNODC, Interpol and EU agencies. The regional UNODC representative office has already expressed its interest in our project and has agreed to be part of the project advisory board.
(2) Activists, workers in the charity and NGO sectors involved in criminal justice, drug policy and migration, will benefit from our research. The West African CLEEN Foundation and Centre for Research and Information on Drug Abuse (CRISA) are central actors in this field of NGOs and activists on the continent. The Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (Geneva) and RUSI's Strategic Hub for Organised Crime Research (London) will also be key beneficiaries.
(3) Third, there is also a significant interest in organised and illicit flows and related policy among the wider public, and our project on two of the most common illicit flows within West Africa promises to further spark increased debate on policy and the role of organised crime in African countries. The project will seek the widest platforms for engaging this public through working with media and disseminating its findings online and through key social media.
Our project has a three-pronged strategy designed to ensure maximum engagement with the widest possible number of beneficiaries. First, the project will be guided by an advisory board constituted not just by academics, but also by policy makers and activists, for instance by Etannibi Alemika, head of the CLEEN Foundation and Prof Mark Shaw, director of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, both of them among Africa's foremost crime and security policy experts working closely with key organisations, such as UNODC and the African Union.
Second, two workshops will be held over the course of the project, which will recruit widely from among our key audiences and beneficiaries, such as a methods and policy workshop in Lagos in the first phase of the project and a second larger workshop at York on new directions in organsied crime research in the global South.
Third, we will disseminate the research findings through two policy papers, which will be designed with the direct input of key beneficiaries and tailored to their policy needs. They will be made available at the York workshop, on our project website and widely disseminated through social media and policy mailing lists. In addition to the methods mentioned above, we will offer opportunities for stakeholders to directly engage with our project through our project team's presence in Ibadan and Lagos - the latter one of Africa's key media and civil society hubs.
Publications
Alemika E
(2023)
Professor Etannibi Alemika's Interview on Organized Crime in West Africa
in Trends in Organized Crime
Cohen C
(2021)
Introduction au thème. La prohibition par le bas : négociations morales et contestations locales
in Politique africaine
Dele-Adedeji I
(2023)
Resolving friction in the tramadol economy in Nigeria
in Drugs, Habits and Social Policy
Frowd P
(2023)
Quasilegality and migrant smuggling in Northern Niger
in Trends in Organized Crime
Klantschnig G
(2021)
Opioid of the People: The Moral Economy of Tramadol in Lagos
in Politique africaine
| Description | The foundation of the project was pioneering and ethically rigorous fieldwork on insider narratives of activities labelled transnational organised crime (TNOC). This was done through in-depth interviews with difficult to access market insiders and regulators in the illicit migrant transport economy in Agadez (Niger) and the illicit opioid economy in Lagos (Nigeria). Our research findings revealed the embeddedness and complexity of these illicit activities and that they were not new, despite claims about their novelty. In fact, they were an integral part of the regional transport economy and the pharmaceutical market, opioids like tramadol providing cheap medicine and work performance enhancement for the poor. These illicit activities also enjoyed relatively high levels of local legitimacy, despite society's moral objections, an aspect we explored in depth in a special issue on 'moral landscapes' of the illicit in Politique Africaine (2021). This social legitimacy of activities labelled TNOC also meant they persisted despite state restrictions. One of our project's aims was to explore the conceptual and theoretical limitations of TNOC, in the West African context. For this purpose, we organised an expert workshop in 2021 to start 'rethinking' the concept, as well as two related conference panels with colleagues from West Africa, which culminated in a second special issue in Trends in Organized Crime (2023). These initiatives and our own fieldwork showed TNOC to be a problematic and state-centric concept which sidelined sub-national and non-organised dimensions as well as related state harms, such as corruption. We proposed to focus instead on the marginalised 'illicit livelihoods' that are entangled with so-called TNOC activities. Regarding policy lessons, our research observed a process of growing criminalisation of these livelihoods and a further marginalisation of the communities they were based in. This was in part a consequence of state discourses on TNOC, which tried to label marginal livelihoods as serious crime and thus delegitimise them. These state attempts to criminalise, such as a 2015 law on human trafficking in Niger, were ignorant of the complexity and embeddedness of these illicit activities and often worsened the livelihoods of the most vulnerable, including migrants and drug users. At two policy workshops with West African and international policymakers and activists in 2020 and 2022, we were able to share how these harms of criminalisation were felt by our interviewees. We also underlined these points in two policy briefings for reform-minded officials and in media contributions and our short project film aimed at the interested public. ODA: Our project, especially its findings and policy lessons, were clearly relevant to the socio-economic development of West African countries, especially the two main study sites where they had most traction. In addition, our project has also helped to build capacity of future researchers, especially through two training programmes on 'Interviewing' (2020) and 'Conducting fieldwork on sensitive topics' (2021) for doctoral students at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. |
| Exploitation Route | 1. Our findings highlight the local particularities of 'transnational organised crime' and narratives about it in West Africa. This will be crucial insight for global comparison, for instance to understand the particularity of the West African opioid crisis or the complex West African policy views on organised crime. 2. In terms of new research questions, our project has shown the utility of analytical concepts such as 'illicit livelihoods' and 'quasilegality,' which should be developed further in future empirical research. The process of criminalisation, especially through anti-TNOC policies, is another area that needs to be explored in more depth. 3. Our project's policy engagement has shown that West African policymakers and activists are eager to learn about critical research on crime and TNOC, which is needed as a pre-requisite for the reform of repressive state policies. We continue to work on this beyond the project in our individual as well as planned future collaborative work. 4. Finally, our project has shown that building the research and fieldwork capacity of future researchers in West Africa should be an integral part of any research on or with partners in the subregion. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Healthcare,Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy |
| URL | https://tnocwestafrica.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Our project set out to take a three-pronged approach to policy impact by tying our advisory board closely into the project at all stages, holding a policy workshop and preparing two targeted policy papers on the research findings. Eventually, our project delivered all of this but also much more, despite Covid-19. This included an extra policy workshop in Niger, a short film on the findings of our project, as well as capacity building activities for West African early career researchers. 1. Informing and engaging key policymakers and activists We had planned for our research to matter in West Africa and so we engaged early on with our advisory board and with policymakers. More specifically, we organised a policy workshop in Nigeria in March 2020 with key UN, government and NGO representatives. Based on this workshop, we developed two policy briefs (incl. French versions) that we disseminated widely. In November 2022, we also held a second policy workshop in Niger which had a much stronger civil society focus (see point 3 below). At our end of project event in December 2022, the UNODC representative who had been part of the first policy workshop stated that our research had had a positive impact on the UNODC's work on organised crime in Nigeria, especially as opioids were now not simply seen as a crime threat but an important health and livelihood issue. 2. Regular briefings on findings As personal meetings became difficult after March 2020, we made it a key priority to provide online briefings for interested policymakers and researchers throughout the rest of the project. We used our policy papers as a basis for these engagements. This included meetings with the UK Home Office Organised Crime Research branch in 2021, UK Foreign Office representatives in Niger in 2022, as well as engagements with Canada Global Affairs in 2022. Several of these meetings were facilitated by UKRI's impact and project integrator, who also helped to link the diverse ESRC projects on the programme and provided a platform to learn from each other's impact activities. 3. Engaging with interested public and civil society We had not initially planned specific impact activities with the interested public, in part due to time and funding constraints. However, as the project evolved, we found strong interest in our work among civil society organisations (CSO) who shared our critical view of anti-TNOC policies in West Africa. For that purpose, we developed a short film on our findings for a lay audience, which we presented at all events since late 2021. A key impact event worth mentioning was the project's second policy workshop co-hosted by the CSO Alternatives Espaces Citoyens in Niger in 2022. This event attracted a large audience interested in our findings and it initiated a lively debate among policymakers, CSOs and researchers in a bilingual setting. The event was also important because it related to ongoing policy reforms in Niger at the time. 4. Related media contributions The Niger policy event was also broadcast across the country by Alternatives Espaces Citoyens's radio station and received interest from local newspapers and agencies, such as Niger News Agency, as well as international news outlets, such as Deutsche Welle. Aside from media contributions related to the Niger event, the team also contributed to media interviews for other media outlets, such as BBC News, and we prepared two widely read articles on our findings for The Conversation UK and The Conversation Africa. 5. Capacity building While specific capacity building initiatives were not planned at the outset of our project, they became an important part when fieldwork was made difficult due to the pandemic. We held a first methods training session on qualitative interviewing at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria in March 2020. And in 2021 we hosted a second hybrid 6-day training programme for West African doctoral and postdoctoral students on 'Conducting fieldwork on sensitive topics', which drew on the fieldwork experiences of our project. Insights from this hands-on training were then used by the early career researchers in their own research. Two of them also subsequently contributed to one of the special journal issues we coordinated. 6. ODA The above capacity building activities of our project were also part of the socio-economic impact of our project. Most of our project's impact was focussed on DAC countries in West Africa but especially Niger and Nigeria. Our project's impact was also linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (esp SDG5, SDG15 and SDG16), as it studied issues of crime, drugs, organised crime and the rights of migrants. Our project showed, above all, that some of the polices supposed to address these issues have caused more harm, including to vulnerable users of opioids and migrants. This message was made clear at all our impact activities in West Africa mentioned above. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy |
| Impact Types | Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Expert Review of the Global Organized Crime Index - African Drug Markets |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://ocindex.net/ |
| Description | International Expert at EU-funded 'Regional Conference on Transnational Organized Crime Related to Substandard and Falsified Medical Products' |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Meeting with UK Embassy in Niamey |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | TNOC-Masterclass "Challenges of Sensitive Fieldworks" (September 2021) |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Upon completing this training course, the participants gained new research skills and claimed to be more equipped in conducting research in volatile environment and/or in dealing with existing social/cultural taboos about the research topic. Some students have submitted their first papers to academic journals on research conducted while relying on the new methods and skills acquired. |
| URL | https://www.ifra-nigeria.org/events/training/masterclasses/432-look-back-at-tnoc-masterclass-challen... |
| Description | Conference Panel: Contesting the criminalisation of mobility and livelihoods in West Africa and in the diaspora |
| Organisation | African Studies Association of the UK |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Learned Society |
| PI Contribution | Conference panel: Contesting the criminalisation of mobility and livelihoods in West Africa and in the diaspora |
| Collaborator Contribution | ASAUK hosted our panel on 'Contesting the criminalisation of mobility and livelihoods in West Africa and in the diaspora' |
| Impact | Conference panel |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Conference Panel: Hidden Narratives of Organised Crime in Africa at ASA-US |
| Organisation | African Studies Association |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Conference panel convened by project team at the US African Studies Association Annual Conference 2020 (online) |
| Collaborator Contribution | Conference panel convened by project team at the US African Studies Association Annual Conference 2020 (online), with conference papers given by all project team members as well as external collaborators, incl from University of Toronto |
| Impact | n/a |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | 2021 Virtual Conference on Serious Organised Crime: Resources and Reference Materials (16/17 September 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The 2021 PaCCS Virtual Conference on Serious Organised Crime provided an opportunity to identify ways to undermine the threats and harms engendered by serious organised crime. Our researchers participated in the debate, presented our research findings and submitted recommendations to deliver impact. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.paccsresearch.org.uk/2021-virtual-conference-on-serious-organised-crime-resources-and-re... |
| Description | Access to Bristol presentation (March 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | 24 A-level students attending a presentation on global crime and drugs in Africa, the project findings are presented as a case study. The presentation is intended to spark interest in research on international crime and drugs. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | BBC News Interview on Fake pharmaceutical industry thrives in West Africa (by Emma Hooper) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | BBC News interview |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53387216 |
| Description | Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy - Policy Fellow Meeting (Home Office, Serious and Organised Crime Research and Analysis, Home Office Analysis and Insight Directorate) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | A Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy arranged meeting with a Policy Fellow from the Home Office, Serious and Organised Crime Research and Analysis, Home Office Analysis and Insight Directorate. Discussing our project's research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | http://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/network/gernot-klantsching/ |
| Description | Expert panel on Hidden Narratives on Transnational Organised Crime in West Africa (Global Conference on Organised Crime, November 2020) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | This panel at the Global Conference on Organised Crime (hosted by the Global Initiative on Organised Crime) focused on the local narratives of policymakers and those engaged in TNOC. Our project preliminary results were presented to a mix of a policy and academic audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://oc24.globalinitiative.net/16b/ |
| Description | IFRA Webinar: Exploring hidden narratives in the West African Tramadol trade and transport of migrants (August 2020) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | IFRA-Nigeria hosted an online seminar to present and discuss the project's first policy paper on Tramadol and the transport of migrants. Policy makers from across West Africa and beyond, as well as IFRA fellows took part in the discussions. The workshop was facilitated by Dr Gernot Klantschnig, Dr Elodie Apard and Dr Philippe Frowd. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://tnocwestafrica.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2020/08/14/ifra-webinar-exploring-hidden-narratives-in-th... |
| Description | IRSEM Webinar & Politique Africaine special issue launch : The moral landscape of drugs (March 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The launch of the publications derived from the project findings as part of a special issue on the moral landscape of drugs in Africa. The online seminar was hosted by the Institute for Strategic Research of the Ecole Militaire (IRSEM), a research-oriented institution operating under the umbrella of the French Ministry for the Armed Forces. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.irsem.fr/agenda-enhancer/agenda/les-paysages-moraux-des-drogues-presentation-du-numero-s... |
| Description | Ibadan policy workshop on hidden narratives on drugs and migration in West Africa (March 2020) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The workshop engaged key policy makers and practitioners from national, international and non-government agencies with research on the hidden narratives on drugs and migration. It focused on the sharing of experience and evidence in relation to the trade in Tramadol and irregular migration in Nigeria and Niger. Participants made comparisons across various policy fields and countries in the sub-region. Based on these discussions and the evidence presented, a policy paper was co-produced. The workshop was held under Chatham House rules. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://tnocwestafrica.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2020/04/18/ibadan-policy-workshop/ |
| Description | LASDEL research workshop November 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | LASDEL (Laboratoire nigérien de recherche en sciences sociales) hosted workshop on Hidden Narratives on Organised Crime in West Africa, 8 November 2022 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Methods training: 'Conducting qualitative interviews on sensitive topics' (March 2020) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Our project partner IFRA-Nigeria hosted a methodological training session at IFRA-Nigeria's library themed 'Conducting qualitative interviews on sensitive topics'. The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Gernot Klantschnig and Dr. Ini-Dele Adedeji and targeted at IFRA's pre-doctoral and doctoral fellows. The workshop was informed by research conducted for the TNOC West Africa project and many fellows present have been working on related subjects and were able to share their experience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://tnocwestafrica.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2020/04/18/ifra-methods-training-conducting-qualitative-i... |
| Description | PolicyBristol Webinar: Drugs, data, harm reduction and human rights (July 2020) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | PolicyBristol hosted a Webinar in response to the launch of our first policy briefing and the United Nations World Drug Report 2020, its annual assessment of global drug use, production and trade. The webinar discussed some of the issues raised in the World Drug Report using research carried out by the University of Bristol, including our work on Tramadol in Nigeria. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://tnocwestafrica.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2020/06/27/policybristol-webinar-drugs-data-harm-reductio... |
| Description | Public talk at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan campus) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Political Science Speaker Series: Quasilegality, Migration, and Borderwork in Niger |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://events.ok.ubc.ca/event/political-science-speaker-series-quasilegality-migration-and-borderwo... |
| Description | Rethinking Organised Crime Workshop (28 and 29 September 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This two-day online workshop offered academics from various disciplines the opportunity to present draft papers on the conceptualisation of organised crime. The papers are currently under peer-review to be part of a special issue of the Trends in Organised Crime journal, scheduled for publication in late 2022. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://tnocwestafrica.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2021/07/19/rethinking-organised-crime-workshop/ |
| Description | Roundtable on 'Criminalisation of the transport of goods and people and consequences in the Sahel and Sahara,' Alternative Espaces Citoyens, Niamey, November 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The project co-organised a Roundtable on 'Criminalisation of the transport of goods and people and consequences in the Sahel and Sahara' with the CSO Alternative Espaces Citoyens, Niamey, November 2022. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/IFRA_Nigeria/status/1588473027595239424/photo/1 |
| Description | Roundtable on Global and Local Narratives of 'Transnational Organized Crime' in West Africa', University of Ottawa, December 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The project held a Roundtable on Global and Local Narratives of 'Transnational Organized Crime' in West Africa', University of Ottawa, December 2022 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | TNOC-Masterclass 'Challenges of Sensitive Fieldworks' (13-19th September 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | A research training programme was organised on the theme: "Challenges of Fieldwork: Data Collection in Sensitive Situations". A six days masterclass took place at the Nigerian Academy of Letters, University of Ibadan from September 13th to 19th, 2021. Upon completing this training course, the research students gained new research skills and claimed to be more equipped in conducting research in volatile environment and/or in dealing with existing social/cultural taboos about the research topic. Some students have submitted papers to academic journals on research conducted while relying on the new methods and skills acquired. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.ifra-nigeria.org/events/training/masterclasses/432-look-back-at-tnoc-masterclass-challen... |
| Description | Webinar on Understanding Resilience to Transnational Organised Crime: The Roles of Communities, Citizens, and Civil Society (June 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The experts reviewed the ENACT Organized Crime Index which provides a picture of criminality and resilience in Africa. In this session, the shortcomings of the ENACT index were identified leading to some guidance for policymakers and practitioners in interpretating the ENACT data. Dr Klantschnig made the compelling argument that criminalisation policies are counterproductive, and more efforts should be redirected towards involving civil society and communities as partners to develop sustainable solutions. An additional outcome is the forthcoming publication of an academic article advocating the adoption of an integrated approach to addressing criminality in Africa. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa4ofnT0aqA |