Report - Organised Crime in Stabilisation Contexts - 2016

Organised Crime in Stabilisation Contexts
Eric Scheye
Stabilisation Unit
December 2015

2
Executive Summary
Over the past few years, a consensus has emerged on
the characteristics of organised crime in fragile,
conflict-affected, and post-conflict countries. What
had previously been described as an adversarial
relationship between organised crime and ‘the state’ is
better understood as a spectrum along which the
engaged partners are wedded one to another, criminal
enterprises to state actors and vice-versa. However,
the balance of power between - and among - the
married partners varies depending on the political and
economic context(s) and the type of commodity being
purveyed.
Discerning when an individual or group of state actors
‘acts’ politically or criminally is ambiguous. This is not
to suggest that the illegal activity itself is innately
difficult to determine. Rather a political actor’s
breaking of the law may be part of his/her wider
political strategy and a criminal act, the distinction
between the two fluid and amorphous. Similarly, a
criminal enterprise may adopt distinct political
positions, advocate for policy choices, fund campaigns,
and provide public goods and services, much as a
government may, while at the same time furthering its
criminal objectives. Doing so can and does enhance
the legitimacyofsome organisedcrime networks.
It is now widely understood that organised crime
enterprises are seldom structured hierarchically, with
strong internal lines of control, discipline, and a strong
social or ethnic identity. Rather, it may be more
accurate to view a majority of organised crime
enterprises through an economic lens - as networks
where each player in the chain from source to market
has specialised‘value added’skillsand expertise.
The functions an actor or group of actors performs
within a criminal network may also be closely related
to that individual or group’s wider societal positions
and roles. Any one individual may play many different
and mutually reinforcing roles – political, economic /
business, and criminal – further highlighting the
salience and importance of politics and power in any
analysis ofand attempt to tackle organisedcrime.
Acknowledging this phenomenon calls for more than a
simple analysis or mapping of formal power structures,
state institutions and agencies, and political parties. It
requires an understanding of how informal power
(economic, social, and political) circulates and through
which channelsit does.
In turn, mapping this ‘division of labour’ can provide
an appreciation of the different entry points for anti-
organised crime efforts. Any response ought to
concentrate on how to change the ‘rules of the game’,
calculationsand incentive structuresat multiple levels.
Law enforcement and criminal justice support,
therefore, are discrete tools within a wider political
and economic response. For example, politically and
economically marginalised groups can provide a
breeding ground for organised crime, if and when
other conditions pre-exist. Law enforcement activities
can decapitate the marginalised group’s leadership,
but it is likely that new leadership will arise and/or
that organised crime’s networks will surface in
neighbouring areas. However, by bringing the
sidelined group into the political and economic fold
the possibility exists that the marginalised group can
be prevented from becoming a ready resource of
labour for organisedcrime.
Because of the marriage of criminal and political
actors, it is also the case that stabilisation can
strengthen organised crime networks. There is often a
political trade-off between consolidating stabilisation
and tolerating embedded organised crime networks.
Concomitantly, political settlements between elites
can also further the process by which organised crime
networks implant themselves within governance
structures and processes (and visa-versa). Moreover,
state-building efforts can - and often do - strengthen
organised crime networks as these usually prefer
(relatively) stable and predictable states, albeit ones
where central institutions remain, for organised
crime’spurposes, suitably weak.
Known empirical correlations exist from which specific
anti-organised crime programmes can be derived.
These include altering existing subsidised commodity
arrangements; supporting tax administration and
collection systems; supporting the establishment of
autonomous electoral commissions; promoting
citizens’ ability to pursue legal claims against their
governments; streamlining administrative and judicial
processes and procedures; increasing the availability
of small business loans; encouraging independent
media outlets; and promoting inclusive political
settlementsandprocesses.

3
Introduction
Over the past few years, an emerging consensus has
arisen in the organised crime literature, at least with
regard to the developing world and in particular to
fragile-vulnerable as well as conflict-affected and post-
conflict states. This revised thinking calls for a
reconsideration of some of the basic concepts of
organised crime and the previously presumed
relationship(s) between criminal enterprises and state.
It seems as if what had been conceptualised as an
essentially adversarial relationship is better understood
as a spectrum along which the engaged partners are
wedded one to another, (criminal enterprises to state
actors and vice-versa). This marriage exists in various
configurations depending upon historical patterns,
political-economic variables, and contemporary political
events.
All of the relationships in the marriage change over
time, even among the criminal enterprises. Sometimes
the criminal enterprises are predominant; at other
moments, the state actors are not only dominant, but
the drivingforce inthe establishmentof the marriage. 1
The balance of power between and among the partners
also shifts dynamically with respect to the product or
commodity being purveyed (from persons to financial
instruments, drugs to arms, counterfeit medicines to
natural resources, human to animal body parts), the
geographic areas through which it is transported, and
the marketintowhichit issold(the how's andwhere's).
To comprehend these permutations, it is also crucial to
know who is buying organised crime’s product and
services, as well as where they are being purchased.2
Jade coming out of Myanmar is very different from
subsidised commodities in North Africa; a child
trafficked for sexual exploitation has few commonalities
to a migrant slipping into Europe from Turkey. 3
Furthermore, each step along the process from product
origination through transport to distribution and
consumption may involve different configurations of
criminal enterprises and state actors, each of whom
may have a comparative advantage for the activity it
undertakes. It should also be noted that discerning
when an individual or group of state actors ‘acts’
politicallyorcriminallyisambiguous.
This is not to suggest that the illegal activity itself is
innatelydifficulttodetermine.Ratheritistosuggest
that a political actor’s breaking the law may be part of
his/her wider political strategy and a criminal act, the
distinction between the two fluid and amorphous.4
Similarly, a criminal enterprise may adopt distinct
political positions, advocate for policy choices, fund
campaigns, and provide public goods and services,
much as a government may, while at the same time
furtheringitscriminal objectives.5
As the basic nature of organised crime is multi-
dimensional – political, economic and legal – the
response must be similarly calibrated. The political and
economic challenges posed by organised crime,
therefore, are as, if not in certain instances more
important, than law enforcement issues. With state
actors being married into the overall criminal
enterprise, it appears that political and economic
responses to organised crime in fragile, conflict-affected
and post-conflict states need to rise to the top of the
agenda. In fact, it may be best to think of law
enforcement as a discrete tool and a means by which to
acquire increased leverage within an overall political
and economic anti-organised crime strategy. This
understanding does not devalue criminal justice and law
enforcement approaches. Rather, it elevates political
and economic engagement, highlights the need to
rebalance the existing calculus, and situates criminal
justice intoitsmostefficaciousoverall position.
Another implication of the emerging consensus is that
the language currently used in organised crime
discussions may no longer be the most suitable. If the
analytic distinction between a criminal and political or
state official (or, conversely, between a criminal
enterprise and government officials along with the
agencies they control) is blurred or, more to the point,
blends together, the term ‘organised crime’ may no
longer be a productive phrase. All of organised crime’s
partners are, essentially, entrepreneurs – albeit with
different skill sets: political, economic/business, criminal
– and it may be prudent to review and revise the
categories with which the overall discussion takes place
in light of that recognition and the incentive systems
that adhere toentrepreneurs.

4
To understand the emerging consensus and its
implications, this report is divided into the following
sections:
1. The emergingconsensus;
2. Societal vulnerabilitiesto - and breeding
grounds of - organisedcrime;
3. Political settlementandstabilisation;and
4. Programmaticimplications.
There are also two attached Annexes. The first, Varying
Frameworks and Typologies, lays out some of the
existing scholarly and academic approaches to
organised crime. The second, Basic correlations,
presents the empirical evidence from which the
recommended activities and interventions are based,
each intervention tied directly to one of the Annex’s
correlations.
1. The EmergingConsensus
The organised crime literature has a long pedigree and
much of the early work analyses the formation and
activities of organised crime as ‘the mafia’ in the United
States and elsewhere. More recently, however, the
literature has moved in two complementary directions:
(a) discussions of organised crime in the fragile-
vulnerable, conflict-affected, and post-conflict states;
and (b) transnational organised crime.6
This move has
been a natural response to the collapse of the Soviet
Union, with its polarised international landscape, and to
the increasingly globalised international political-
economy. However, almost all of the literature
concentrates on a criminal justice or law enforcement
understanding of organised crime; few, if any, analysts
or scholars claim to know ‘what works;’ and there is
virtual unanimity in conceding that there has been a
notable lackof successin tacklingorganisedcrime.7
This does not mean that there have been no successes.
To the contrary, there have been some, singular
achievements. For instance, the Kimberley Process had
some initial successes in terms of tracking and limiting
‘blood diamonds’ in West Africa, although of a limited
nature.8
In Nepal, programmes have been shown to be
effective in protecting the resources of national parks
with the establishment of buffer zones and the active
participation of local communities.9
In Bangladesh there
have been reports of effective work being undertaken
to limit cigarette smuggling.10
And in a number of
instances, such as in Sierra Leone and periodically in
Nigeria, selected senior officials have been prosecuted,
although without appreciable effect on the overall
organisedcrime situation.
An interesting phenomenon of international (regional)
and national criminal justice collaboration has also
exhibited successes. The recent events in Guatemala,
with the indictment of senior political and state officials,
signals that the International Commission against
Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) has made real progress.
The anti-piracy efforts in East Africa fall under a
comparable rubric. Two international NGOs,
International Justice Mission (IJM)11
and Eco Activists
for Governance and Law Enforcement (Eagle
Network), 12
dedicated to thorough independent
investigation of organised crime and, then, turning over
the evidence to national authorities for prosecution
seemtobe able toregistersuccesses.
In all these instances, however, the challenge is the
durability and long-term significance of the
achievements. For instance, claims have been made,
justifiably so, that Colombian anti-drug trafficking
efforts have been successful. It is true that drug
traffickers no longer operate for a long period of
criminal activity before being captured and
prosecuted.13
Nevertheless, it would be difficult to
make the case that drug trafficking from the overall
region of South American of which Colombia is a part
has been significantly lowered,14
which is known as the
balloon effect, or that the organised crime in Colombia
has beensignificantlyreduced.
Organised CrimeNetworks
Among the first understandings of the current literature
is the recognition that organised crime enterprises have
more than one type of internal structure. This has
meant acknowledging that these enterprises are not
necessarily organised hierarchically, but can be
structured as a network, with each player in the chain
from product origination through to its being marketed
for consumption having specialised skills and
expertise. 15
This orientation has become almost
axiomatic in the current literature, despite a 2006 UN
survey that indicated that only 50% of the organised
crime enterprises appear to be structured in networks.
The other half, according to the survey, retains a more
traditional hierarchical internal system based upon
“strong internal lines of control and discipline; (2) single

5
leadership coordination; and (3) a strong social or
ethnicidentity.”16
Notwithstanding the empirical difficulties posed by the
survey’s findings, the identification of networks offers a
number of important contributions. First, within a
‘network’ model lies the implicit notion of a ‘division of
labour,’ triggering a business and economic approach of
who provides which specialisation when and where. For
each specialised link in the network, there is an implied
‘value added.’ Analysing who contributes what ‘value
added’ can provide an appreciation of the different
entry points to tackle that network.17
The higher the
value of an actor in the production chain, the more
likely it is that that actor’s skills are rare and increases
the probability that altering his/her participation will be
disruptive.18
Afghanistan’s drug trade illustrates the importance of
coming to terms with the concept of ‘value added.’
While Afghani migrant labor is important for the
cultivation and harvesting of the poppy crop, the value
added of their input, albeit crucial, is low. This is
partially because there is a ready supply of migrant
Afghan labour. Sopping up migrant labour as a means
by which to lower the production of poppy may,
therefore, not possess much marginal utility, even if
such schemes were to have numerous other beneficial
effects. This example does not imply that entry points
should focus exclusively on ‘high value added’
components within a network, butit does, first, reframe
the analysis and, second, is a useful reminder than
organised crime, frequently, involves segments of the
local population who may come to rely upon the
economic benefits and byproducts of organised crime
and, therefore, may not even consider their activities as
criminal. 19
Consequently, organised crime
programming needs to concentrate on how to ‘change
the rules of the game’ in order to affect the ‘value
added’of differentplayerswithinanetwork.20
A second important contribution of the network model
is an appreciation that the functions an actor or group
of actors performs within a criminal network may be
closely related to that individual or group’s wider
societal positions and roles. Any one individual may
play many different and mutually reinforcing roles –
political, economic/business, and criminal, which makes
it more difficult to curtail organised crime’s influence
and power. This personalisation of power appears to be
the case in many fragile-vulnerable, conflict-affected
and post-conflict societies, from Latin America21
to the
Sahel, sub-Sahara Africa to Asia. It implies that these
actors are deeply embedded within their societies, its
power structures, elites, and political systems.22
This
situation also raises the salience and importance of
politics and power in any analysis of and attempt to
tackle organised crime. As one analyst has written,
organised crime could not flourish, let alone exist
without the “surreptitious aid of public and private
figures such as law enforcement officers, judges,
prosecutors, mayors, bankers, attorneys, accountants,
and elected and appointed political persons at all levels
of government.”23
Acknowledging this phenomenon calls for more than a
simple analysis or mapping of formal power structures,
‘state institutions and agencies,’ and political parties. It
requires an understanding of how informal power,
economic and political, circulates and through which
channels it does. The signature of a minister may be
formally important to obtain permission to launch a
justice and security development programme or its
equivalent anti-organised crime initiative, but its
implementation invariably lieselsewhere, at a minimum
within the organisation itself, not to mention the
associated affinity groups of that organisation’s
personnel, all of which lies outside the purview of the
Minister.24
For example, countless individuals along the
migrant routes into Europe earn money from those who
are transported through their cities, towns, and villages.
Their livelihoods are integrated into organised crime’s
activities and their ‘informal’ role needs to be not only
recognised and understood within the wider network
analysis and mapping, but taken into account when
trying to alter organised crime network’s ‘rules of the
game.’
The emerging consensus’ analysis implicitly contributes
a third important understanding of organised crime,
namely its flexibility and adaptability. In Mali, for
instance, “the fact that illicit trafficking continued,
largely unabated, amid seismic shifts in political and
security arrangements in northern Mali, further
underscores the adaptability and flexibility of the
networks involved, and highlights the responsiveness of
the broader system in allocating incentives and
spreading risk according to realities on the ground.”25
As a recent article on migration into Europe emphases,
organised crime’s networks are in continual change,
capable of rapidly seizing and exploiting market
opportunities – arbitraging price discrepancies that,

6
invariably, arise out of public policies.26
A 2011 study of
corruption state officials noted that civil servants
respond to accountability/anti-corruption initiatives and
policies (which can be characterised as market forces)
by rapidly altering their strategies to extract criminal
rents.27
In Liberia, the post-civil war destination for
organised crime’s timber has shifted to Asia with the
active complicityof internationalcorporations.28
The Consensus
The emerging consensus appears in the work of three
organised crime scholars, even though the three have
adopted and taken distinct perspectives. The
differences among them hew more to the subjects on
which they concentrate than on any significant
theoretical or substantive issue or disagreement
betweenthem.
One of the three academic positions claims that
organised crime, depending upon the circumstance,
competes, co-opts, collaborates, and is allied with, if not
fused into, states and their governance systems at the
local, provincial, national, and regional levels. Roles,
functions, and identities are not institutionalised, but
are fluid and variable and, as a result, it is, in many
cases, problematic to disentangle an individual and
group’s political role from their business endeavours
and both from their illegal activities. Furthermore, and
most importantly, this argument asserts that organised
crime enterprises think and act “strategically.”29
What
is meant is that organised criminal enterprises are
nimble, adaptable, and highly skilled at taking
advantage of any and all opportunities to leverage rents
to acquire greater wealth and power. If the
government of Sierra Leone raises the tax rate on the
sale of diamonds, organised crime enterprises will
reroute illicitly acquired diamonds through Liberia
and/or Cote D’Ivoire, which is exactly what happened, a
shift in the distribution of diamonds that returned to
‘normal’onlyafterSierraLeone reducedthe tax rate.
What is required to address this complex system,
according to this scholar, is a “strategic” approach that
works at multiple levels simultaneously, including, but
not limited to communication and media, state anti-
corruption mechanisms, strengthened criminal justice
institutions, and enhanced delivery of public goods and
services by state agencies. 30
More importantly,
however, this argument suggests that the choices
individuals and groups make are crucial variables in
addressing organised crime and that donor-supported
programming should, ultimately, focus on that.
Although not explicitly stated, the implication is that the
programming needs to seek ways to ‘change the rules
of the game,’ at all levels, but particularly at the
household and enterprise ones, 31
for those rules
establishthe incentivesthatdrive organisedcrime.
Another scholar observes that in countries such as
Guatemala, Mali, Libya, Ukraine, Papua New Guinea,
and Mexico, the phenomenon of organised crime
combines, blends, and merges territorial, global
business, and politics in such a way as to devalue the
term “organised crime.”32
In such countries, the
situation is one in which the private self-interest of
criminal, business, and state actors manipulate,
accumulate, and wield power over and through what
are ostensibly considered (in Weberian terms) state
institutions and agencies, although the same can occur
in states, such as Mali and Sierra Leone, where the
formal structures have been largely replaced or are
supplemented by patronage, affinity groups, and
religious affiliation. In states, such as Kenya33
or
Guatemala,34
where state institutions and agencies,
have become a form of and a vehicle with which to
accumulate private goods, the nominal notion of
“legality and illegality cannot get to the heart of the
matter.”35
Nor, in practical terms, can concepts of
public trust, legitimacy, and the basic understanding of
the state as a means of enhancing the public good get
to the heart of the matter, even if they remain the
ideals to achieve. In Sierra Leone, where state officials
and the Bar Association have consistently resisted
meaningful justice development, it is difficult to ascribe
to the notion that the principal purpose of such state
agencies and the individuals who manage them is to
deliver public goods and services. It is much more
realistic to understand that the primary function of the
institutions is as a medium for private aggrandisement,
while the public good of delivering justice is a secondary
or tertiaryderivative.
While the author does not presume that all state
institutions, agencies, and actors –whether formally or
informally identified – are necessarily implicated in
organised crime, the implication of recognising the
situation for what it is questions the utility of relying
heavily upon and working primarily through formal and
informal state institutions and agencies.36
Simply put,
there are too many officials, politicians, and power
brokers who have little incentive to undermine their or

7
their colleagues’ private self-interest. This raises politics
to a higher order with the key question becoming: what
are the trade-offs and risks donors are willing to
tolerate when undertaking anti-organised crime
endeavours?37
The third scholar takes a narrower, but, in the last
analysis, equally political stance by focusing on
organised crime enterprises’ need for safety and
security for the origination, transport, and distribution
of their illicit products. The crux of the matter in this
understanding of organised crime is the role of state
and other actors who specialise in the business of
“protecting” illicit products and their markets, locally
and globally. 38
Protection is not only a physical
phenomenon. It can also be a legal and management
activity, but, most importantly, it is a business and
needs to be understood through a business lens.39
In
the case of Mali, prior to the military coup, the
government protected the drug trade through its role as
a “vetter” of criminal groups, selecting those who were
permitted to carry on their trade and, concurrently,
prohibiting others. While the selection of the criminal
group was also politically motivated, the central issue
here is one of business relationships and the trade flows
that the relationships and partnerships have been
established to protect. These flows transverse illegal
and legal markets, as the New York luxury housing
market is appreciably affected by individuals who need
to ‘park’ their profits offshore and in a safe harbour.
The same applies to the financial safe havens of Zurich,
London, Dubai and Hong Kong, whose financial services
are available tothose witheitherillicitorlegal profits.40
The hallmark of this emerging consensus can readily be
summarised: in many fragile-vulnerable, conflict-
affected, and post-conflict countries, the “merging of
business, government and criminal actors… [has
produced] a politicisation of crime and a criminalisation
of politics.”41
Once again, this does not imply a
monolithic situation in which all politicians and
government officials are implicated in crime. Fissures
exist and can be used for programming purposes. Not
all business interests and enterprises are criminal in
nature. Furthermore, it can be argued that business
often prefer an absence of organised crime to its
prevalence and, therefore, may be a crucial long-term
ally in anti-organised crime programming, if the ‘right’
incentivescanbe applied.
What the emerging consensus does imply is that the
organised crime dynamic is prevalent and embedded
within a set of countries – from Nepal to Nigeria, Brasil
to Kenya, Kosovo to Bangladesh. Programming that
does not explicitly take this dynamic into account does
not accord to best practices and runs the grave risk of
being ineffective. Under this basic rubric, the two
principal questions appear to be: (1) how to change the
‘rules of the game’ so as to influence incentive
structures at various levels and (2) what political ‘trade-
offs’ and risks are donors willing to tolerate in order to
do so.
2. Societal Vulnerabilitiesto - and BreedingGrounds
of - OrganisedCrime
Taking the emerging consensus seriously implies a
return to basics. Programmatically, it means seeking
out some of the core fundamentals upon which
organised crime, as understood by the emerging
consensus, depends. This is an explicitly empirical
rather than ideological quest, the objective or which is
to stipulate a cogent set of Causal Vulnerabilities and,
then, a series of empirically valid correlations and
relationships that lie at the roots of organised crime
(Annex II), from which pragmatic programmes and
projectscan be derived.42
Overarching Vulnerabilities
One of the recurring themes in the literature has been
the search for specific societal ‘vulnerabilities’ that
enable the rise of organised crime. Unfortunately, little
credible empirical evidence exists, other than case
studies, from which, reliably, to identify the sought for
causal variables. The case studies, however, are more
than illustrative and suggest that, at a very minimum, a
group of variables can be isolated whose presence,
individually and in combination, pose a very high
propensity of producing organised crime enterprises
that become well entrenched.43
The list of variables that have been proposed is
exhaustive and includes, inter alia: conflict; poverty;
rapid urbanisation; horizontal inequality; strong and
persistent patronage / affinity / tribal networks; lack of
internal and external accountability mechanisms;
absence of a governance system of checks and
balances, including anti-corruption bodies that are not
independent; weak culture of freedom for and access to
information; poor legislative drafting skills and more.44

8
One study suggested that low gross domestic product
(GDP) and poor economic opportunities with barriers to
enter the labour economy were causal factors.45
This
study highlighted segregated ethnic communities –
politically, economically, and racially – as a causal
factor, in that these communities are inherently hostile
to law enforcement.46
Another analysis intimated that
in areas with “massive under or unemployment… [and
where] economic opportunities are extremely limited,
the lure of organised crime begins to represent not
‘greed’ but ‘survival’” and, therefore, the socio-
economic variables can be seen as causal.47
Another of
the alleged vulnerabilities that arises time and again in
the literature is the existence of “ungoverned spaces,”
weak security institutions, and state failure.48
In a
related vein, states and governments with weak
legitimacy is recurrently raised as a variable that
explainsthe rise of organisedcrime.
The difficulty with ascribing the above-mentioned
variables as causal vulnerabilities is that there are too
many counter-examples that belie the causal argument.
Brazil’s Petrobras scandal, illuminating the depths to
which organised crime permeates the country’s core,
took root during a period of risingincome andeconomic
opportunities and in a country with an independent
judiciary and strong legislative capabilities, facts which
undercut many of the variables outlined above. The
intense involvement of West African military and
government officials in the drug trade intimates that
‘ungoverned spaces’ are not required for organised
crime to blossom, presuming that such a concept exists
in the first place. According to one study, “organised
crime syndicates… prefer “a strong, functioning state”49
with competent infrastructure and “enough rule of law
to make life generally predictable” over a weak or
“failed state fundamentally lacking critical amenities.”50
The general absence of organised crime in Nicaragua in
contradistinction to the other Central American
communities indicates that poverty, low GDP,
horizontal inequalities are not necessarily causal
factors, as many of these variables are worse in
Nicaragua than in its neighbours. There are many
oppressed and economically deprived ethnic
populations around the world in whose areas organised
crime has not prospered. Consequently, there must be
other,more causal vulnerabilitiesatwork.
Weak accountability and checks and balances
mechanisms may contribute to the proliferation of
organised crime, but are definitively not causal factors.
Neither are weak security services or
states/governments with severe capacity deficiencies.
At best, the limitations and deficiencies of these
institutions and systems are an intervening variable,
with a whole host of socio-economic variables
responsible for the deficits in governance systems.
Furthermore, the real challenge is not whether such
systems exist and are sufficiently robust. Rather it is if
the leadership and its commitment to use them does --
as the recent VW emission case suggests, given that
allegedly ‘strong’ accountability mechanisms
systematically failed for years within the EU, US, and
Canada to uncover a highly organised crime enterprise.
A similar argument can be pursued with regard to
China, which is anything but a weak state. In China, the
state/Communist Party chose for decades to turn a
blind eye to massive organised crime, even though it
had all the legitimacy and power needed to uncover and
prosecute itif itso chose to do so.51
However, analysis of fragile-vulnerable, conflict-
affected, and post-conflict countries – as well data from
a set of more than 60 countries52
– suggests that there
are a smaller, more potent set of factors that appear
consistentlycase aftercase. These are:
i. one-party53
and/orrentierstates54
;
ii. the subsequentcollapse of one-party
and/orrentierstates;55
iii. large governmental subsidiestoprivate
economicinterests;56
iv. geographicareasthat straddle trade routes,
usuallyhistoricbutwithglobalisationnot
necessarilyso;57
and
v. large informal and/orilliciteconomies.
More than one of these factors may exist in the same
geographic area or state, such as in Mali where a one-
party state, historical trade routes, and large
informal/illicit markets overlap, but it appears that at
least one of these factors is present in countries where
organisedcrime ispervasive.
The question does arise whether these five factors are
susceptible to direct outside programming as a means
by which to reduce organised crime. In the main, doing
so directly is, most likely, not practical for, at least, two
reasons. First, it is prudent to recognise that these
factors stem from structural and systemic issues,
against which outside programming may have relatively
little tangible effect. Second, the emerging consensus

9
implies that these structural elements work to the
advantage of powerful state, political and economic
actors, who, therefore, have few incentives to alter
their prerogatives. International diplomacy may be
useful to widen differences and fissures between and
among these actors, blue sky that may, in time, be
exploitable through subsequent concrete programming.
However, taken together, there appears to be little that
outside programming can do directly to affect these
variables, other than highly targeted criminal
investigations and prosecutions, which can, when
integrated into an overall political and economic
strategy,leverage internationalinfluence.
Breeding groundsin which organised crimetakesroot
Beyond the vulnerabilities outlined above, there are a
number of enabling variables which, while not directly
causal to the proliferation of organised crime do
provide fertile breeding grounds in which organised
crime can blossom. Poverty and horizontal inequalities,
for instance, offer organised crime a ready labour force.
An oppressed and segregated ethnic minority does too,
particularly if its traditional territory sits astride an
historical transit route, such as the Tuareg and Tebu in
sub-Sahara Africa, respectively, but revved up only after
the collapse of the Ghadfi regime. States in which a
culture of impunity has blossomed, from Brazil to
Mexico, from Bangladesh to Kenya may be excellent
incubatorsinwhichto groworganisedcrime.
The presence of conflict is repeatedly raised as a key
variable in the strengthening of organised crime and, in
many circumstances, it has and does. There are,
however, three separate issues to consider. First, as in
the case of West Africa, the governments that existed
prior to the conflicts can and, often, do “incorporate…
significant elements of what were later understood to
be criminal networks into their strategies of rule.”58
Consequently, it is inaccurate to presume that
organised crime arises only from out of conflict and
does not predate it. Second, the challenge is to
understand the direction of the relationship of the
particular case – does conflict generate organised crime
or vice versa. Unfortunately, according to a recent
study, knowledge about causal relationships between
conflict and crime is “rather confused and
compartmentalized”59
and causality is case-bound and
variable, not merely across conflicts, but also, probably,
within them as well – by geographic area and party to
the conflict. The third is to ascertain the repercussions
of the activities of international peacekeeping/peace-
building/state-building, as they may not necessarily be
benevolent,eitherknowinglyorunwittingly.60
What is evident is that conflict is a breeding ground for
organised crime. The parties to a conflict, governments
and armed groups, all can and do adopt criminal and
political strategies to advance their parochial
objectives.61
Colombia, Kosovo, Guatemala, eastern
Congo, Myanmar, Nepal, and Liberia are all examples
where conflict and organised criminal enterprises had
and have over time become inexorably intertwined.
Furthermore, it appears that ‘war economies’ and the
criminalisation bound within such economies can
significantly contribute to the continuation of conflict,
as is the case in Afghanistan with all parties
implicated.62
Anti-organised crime programming may be able to
reduce organised crime if it were able to influence the
breeding grounds within which organised crime
nourishes itself. Such programming needs to be highly
specific and based upon a rigorous problem-solving
methodology. Programming cannot, for instance,
appreciably affect overall rates of poverty or horizontal
inequality, but it might be able to target a particular
demographic, such as boda-boda drivers in countries
from Cote d’Ivoire through Sierra Leone, Uganda to
Kenya, who are marginalised and susceptible to being
drawn into organised crime enterprises. Programming
cannot reverse the degradations caused by rapid
urbanisation, but, in Bangladesh, it may be possible to
engage in and support labour rights as a means by
which to begin to reduce organised crime. In Jamaica,
programming could target the gangs, originally
sponsored by politicians to further their private and
electoral interests. As in a programme in Port Moresby
that had been exhibiting positive results in an extremely
difficult environment, the Jamaican objective would be
the multi-dimensional needs of the youths who are
gang adherents, their having joined not principally
because of unemployment, but for reasons that drove
them to become gang members – wanting to belong, a
loss of hope, and protection, as is true with gang youths
around the world. Young urban women, with their
unique needs, could also be included in such
programming, as influencers of young men and mothers
of the nextgeneration.
Once again, following the emerging consensus, the
approach is first andforemost political and economic. A

10
criminal justice initiative against the Tuareg or Tabu in
sub-Sahara Africa is simply unrealistic, but it may be
plausible, as an entry point, to begin to address their
political and economic needs country by country, as a
means by which to reduce their marginalisation.
Criminal justice anti-gang programming could be
successful in sub-Sahara if police services had the
overall skills and capacities of western urban police
services, which they do not,63
but even then western
anti-gang efforts do not rely solely or primarily on law
enforcement activities. Military force may been able to
bring the FARC to the negotiating table, but only politics
and land reform will, appreciably and sustainably,
reduce their engagement in organised crime. The
principal agencies of the Colombia state might have
been able to protect and resurrect the integrity, but
organised crime at the middle and lower levels remains
rampant.64
3. Political SettlementandStabilisation
The emerging consensus, wedding political
organisations/parties, economic groups and criminal
enterprises, poses fundamental challenges to the
international community’s peacekeeping, peace- and
state-building agenda(s). The challenge is in
determining what these agendas can realistically
achieve, given the melding and blending of the state65
and organised crime actors. A comparable challenge
exists for the narrower subfield of security and justice
development. In Libya, one analyst has argued that
efforts to draw the various competing and armed
groups into peace- and/or state-building processes will,
accordingto a recentreport,be:
either unlikely to succeed if there is heavy involvement
in illicit trade, as powerful protection economies have
grown up in the absence of state control, and they lack
incentives to support central governance, or it will
merely legitimize criminal economies under the guise of
democratic process and diplomacy, but provide little
return in terms of stability or development for the
people (italicsadded).66
Stringently phrased, what type of peace- and state-
building is practical and achievable, when, under certain
circumstances, such as when organised crime has taken
root, ‘the state’ – understood as the full panoply of
public authorities, formal and informal, kinship,
religious, ethnic, criminal – can no longer be
automatically considered to be a form of legitimate
governance whose primary purpose is to advance the
public good and deliver public services to the populace?
This is not to suggest that such ‘states’ do not advance
the public good at all. Rather it is to claim that in these
‘states,’ such as Kenya or Papua New Guinea, the
advancement of the public good is of secondary or
tertiary importance, subordinate to and in service of the
aggrandisementof private wealthandpower.
Stepping back for a moment, a preliminary premise of
international peacekeeping, peace- and state-building
activities is the notion that, after conflict, stabilitisation
helps “to establish the conditions under which an
inclusive political settlement can be sought.
Stabilisation can therefore be a ‘first step’ towards
progress on state-building and peacebuilding in very
insecure environments.”67
Stabilisation allows for and
needs to be achieved in conjunction with the
establishment of a political settlement for state-building
to occur.68
Organised crime actors and their political partners,
however, are well skilled in exploiting the international
community’s quest for stability and fear of the
consequences of instability, manipulating them for its
own private aggrandisement. According to a senior UN
official, this is precisely what has and continues to
happen in Liberia.69
An “unintended message” in
Liberia, one that is well understood by organised crime
and others, is that the international community “will
walk away from politically sensitive questions for the
sake of stability.”70
As a consequence, Liberians are
able ‘to blackmail’ the international community and
fortify the prerogatives of organised crime by raising the
specterof instabilityandinsecurity.71
The challenge is not binary – either stability or
instability. Stability is essential, but not an end in itself.
Rather it is a means to an end and, therefore, relative -
more or less stability. Consequently, as the UN official
pointed out, stability is a political calculation, one that
weighs “opportunity costs” and “trade-offs” along
different dimensions – more or less stability for the
residents of the country; more or less stability for the
country’s elites; more or less stability for the
international community. The challenge is to navigate
these shoals while explicitly recognising and taking into
account the marriage of organised crime and ‘state’
actors.

11
A comparable political challenge lies within the political
settlement itself. Typically, a country’s political
settlement is an agreement among elites to establish
the rules of the game and distribute power.72
A political
settlement tends to be an evolving construct, which
changes according to circumstances, context, and the
respective power of those who negotiate and, then,
renegotiate the settlement.73
It is always preferable for
a political settlement to be more rather than less
inclusive, initially and as it evolves, 74
but a key
ingredient of - and rationale for - these settlements is
the elite’s or elites’ ‘protection’ and advancement of
their own prerogatives.75
This does not imply that these
political settlements ignore the rest of the country’s
populace. Nor does it imply that the political settlement
does not provide for the advancement of the public
good. Rather, it suggests that the political settlement is
primarily determined by the elite(s)76
and that the
provision of public goods and services is a by-product of
the political settlement and not its primary objective, for
what is good for the elite(s) is perceived to be in the
best interests of all others as well. This is as true of the
1215 Magna Carta and the 1789 US Constitution as it is
for the 1995 Dayton Accords, the 1996 Guatemalan
peace pact, the Kenyan 2008 post-electoral violence
power-sharingagreement,andcurrenteffortsinLibya.
It is one thing for a political settlement to favor the rich
and powerful. That is largely inevitable; winners win. It
is quite another for political settlements to advance the
private interests of organised crime’s wedding. In
countries in which the organised crime’s marriage is
particularly entrenched, the political settlement is and
will be inexorably tainted.77
This is not merely a
question of the political settlement evolving and going
“through periods of consolidation and strengthening as
well as periods of deterioration,”78
which it will do.
Rather it is about the settlement’s original foundations
and the power dynamics of its evolution from those
flawed beginnings. These political settlements protect
and enshrine into the ‘rules of governance’ the existing
power of organised crime – whether in Afghanistan or
Guatemala; Angola, Russia, Brazil or Mali; Mozambique,
Kenya or Kosovo.79
The result is, as in West Africa, the
inclusion of the warlord politics and economics of
organised crime into “official state structures.”80
These
are not political settlements of inclusion, but
significantlypoweredbyorganisedcrime.
The emerging consensus does not shy away from
explicitly recognising the challenge. One analyst raises
the issue, questioning “whether it is wiser to include a
criminal group in peace efforts, or to exclude them”
and, then, goes on to note that “illegal rent-seeking
behaviour by elites, especially in the post-conflict
period… [may be important to condone] since access to
or laundering of criminal rents may in fact be what
ultimately incentivises criminal actors to support a
political settlement.”81
Another more openly advocates
that it “is imperative that criminal networks remain
engaged and feel as though they have something to
gain… politically, socially or economically from peace,”
stability, and the political settlement.82
Inclusion of
organised crime is, unfortunately, in many cases, a
political reality and, according to scholars, was equally
true for and inearlymodernEurope.83
The question at hand, however, extends beyond the
political settlement per se. It is widely acknowledged
that there is a sequence, from stability to political
settlement that culminates in state-building, with all its
associated non-linear incremental steps, shocks,
setbacks, and renewals. What happens during state-
building, however, when organised crime through the
political settlement has been embedded into the
foundations, initial systems, and institutions of the
state? What happens when organised crime’s networks
have sufficient power and are able to mold and contour
the forms and directions in and with which state-
building takes place?84
There are occasions when
“state-building efforts do not weaken informal
[organised crime] actors but actually often strengthen
them.”85
There are times, too, when organised crime
wants a stable and predictable state, but one in which
‘the central institutions of the state’ remain, for
organisedcrime’spurposes,suitablyweak.
State-building “is concerned with the state’s capacity,
institutions and legitimacy, and with and the political
and economic processes that underpin state-society
relations.”86
State-building efforts, according to theory,
ought to address and integrate four activities: the root
causes of conflict and fragility, supporting inclusive
political settlements, developing the core state
functions, and responding to public expectations.87
In
practice, despite articulated policies and a growing
recognition of the importance of “non-state and
community-level institutions,”88
a preponderance of
state-building projects default to ‘capacity-building’ or
‘institutional capacity building.’ For this report, the
issue is not a development question of ‘effective
programming,’ but rather one of politics and trade-offs.

12
When a state agency’s provision of public goods and
services is of only secondary or tertiary importance, the
justification for strengthening that institution is a
political choice. Building the capacities, for instance, of
the Burundian, Ethiopian and Kenyan states – their
security and justice systems, in particular – may be
politically justifiable. Doing so may, for instance,
increase the levels of justice provided to women in rural
provinces. It may enhance the ability of the police to
resolve everyday crime, as has, for instance, occurred in
Cambodia, a classic case of a state dominated by
organised crime. These are decidedly good results and,
withouthesitation,shouldbe supportedandpursued.
But, at the same time, these initiatives play at the
margins and it is best for donors to recognise and
acknowledge that reality. It may, for instance, be the
best donors can do, given their political leverage.
Undertaking such initiatives, then, is a political choice,
knowing that only a percentage of a state-building
programme can, given optimal conditions, generate the
intended results. That percentage can and will vary.
But, it cannot be more than a percentage of the best
designed and implemented initiatives, for the enhanced
capacities will also be used for the further accumulation
of wealth and power by organised crimes’ networks.
This is not a risk. Nor is an issue of formulating the
appropriate risk mitigation strategy. It is a high
probability that strengthened institutions will allow for
greater aggrandisement, given the very purpose of the
state, its systems, and structures. This is also not about
political will or resistance to development, but about
the political choicesandtrade-offsdonorsmake.
It is unlikely that development or outside initiatives can
persuade the marriage of politics, business, and
organised crime to do what its actors do not perceive to
be in their rationale self-interest. For instance, as
already argued, given their current organised self-
interests that have persisted since the end of the civil
war, the politicians, government officials, and Bar
Association leaders of Sierra Leone have little reason to
institute and implement neededjudicial reforms.
There will, most likely, be occasions when the self-
interests of organised crime’s married partners do not
coincide. There are also potential discrepancies or ‘blue
sky’ between and among the tangled web of political,
state, business, and criminal actors. These spaces and
fissures, if correctly identified, offer donors and others
the possibility to engage in their own form of arbitrage,
one that is, admittedly, highly political and equally
highly charged. Exploiting these frissons, donors might
be able to support productive state-building initiatives.
Furthermore, once begun, it is possible that effective
state-building initiatives can widen the fissures and
create additional ‘political space’ by building
constituencies whose self-interest supports more
equitable and fairer development, better provision of
public goods and services. It is also plausible that within
these spaces traditionally understood ‘governance’
programmes – accountability, financial management,
human resources, etc. – can be initiated. This virtuous
circle of political arbitrage, where fissures within
organised crime networks can be progressively
widened, is precisely the argument and policy that
underwrote the ‘transitions from authoritarianism’
programminginLatinAmericaand elsewhere.
This form of political arbitrage by donors is, however, a
high-risk political venture and can result in
programmatic failure. For more than a decade, the UK
has tried to advance accountability programming in
Nigeria, particularly within the police, with, at the very
best, scant results. It is not merely a lack of political will
on the part of the Nigerian police and their political
masters. Rather it is that significant police
accountability cuts against the grain of organised crime
interests and, therefore, has little chance of success.
Closure of a programme, as happened to DFID’s recent
security and justice initiative in Ethiopia is another
possible outcome if programmes engage in this type of
high-risk political arbitrage. Tepid Ethiopian
acquiescence to the DFID programme existed until the
moment at which powerful, key Ethiopian actors
perceived their vital self-interests to be threatened. At
that moment, Ethiopian authorities suddenly and
immediatelyhaltedprogrammaticactivities.
Donors may also choose to undertake state-building to
advance their national interests. This type of state-
building requires a more straightforward political cost-
benefit analysis, namely that the political benefits
accruing to the donor by building and strengthening the
capacities of the state outweighs the repercussions of
those capacities profiting organised crime’s private
interests and the knock-on effects that may have over
time.

13
5. Programmatic Implications
Political Costs: Risksand Trade-offs
The programmatic implications of the emerging
consensus are straightforward – responses to organised
crime require, first and foremost, political and
economic interventions, into which criminal justice
support is integrated.89
With the notable exception of
the hybrid criminal justice model (CICIG in Guatemala,
anti-piracy in East Africa, IJM worldwide, and the Eagle
Network in Africa), stand-alone criminal justice
programming, while it might be able to ‘decapitate’ the
leadership of an organised crime enterprise and/or
network has not proven to be effective over the long
run. As already noted, criminal justice programming
may be able to leverage international influence, but,
eventually, will need to be integrated into political and
economicprogramming.
The ‘politics’ of organised crime, however, cannot be
equated to the acknowledgement customary in security
and justice development that all programming is
‘political’ and necessitates accurate political economy
assessments. As already indicated, the requisite notion
of politics also extends beyond acknowledgement of
questions of ‘ownership’ and the concomitant
assumption that programming faces endemic
resistance.90
Because politics, economics/business, and organised
crime enterprises are wedded in fragile-vulnerable,
conflict-affected, and post-conflict states, there are very
few clean hands.91
The basic assumption should be not
whether principal political and government partners are
implicated in or, at the very least, associated with,
organised crime. Rather, the challenge is to understand
how and in what ways they are involved. Without
question, exceptions to the rule exist, but they will arise
only by working through a rigorous political vetting
process. Champions of change may exist, but the
fundamental challenge is how much can they
implementandactuallydeliver.
Consequently, political alliances with less than savory
‘owners’ will have to be made and those alliances pose
risks and trade-offs. The political costs associated with
those trade-offs will differ not only country-to-country
but also within an initiative according to project/activity
and the constellations of power affected. In short, to
undertake anti-organised crime programming (or, for
that matter, security and justice programming, given
the organised crime and state marriage), there is a need
to calculate the political capital one iswilling to spend, a
calculus for which there is no pre-determined matrix or
definedsystemforgauging.
ConcreteProgrammaticPossibilities
Once the need to reckon political costs and expend
political capital is accepted, the next step is to begin to
think through how to promote changes to ‘the rules of
the game,’ ones that may be able to shift balances of
power and their incentive structures at multiple levels
and, thus, may, over time, have significant effect. The
following examples, each of which has the potential to
‘change rules of the game’ over time, are sketched out
to illustrate potential programming. Most importantly,
each recommendation is directly grounded upon the
empirical data and known correlations presented in
Annex II. Each is also, with regard to anti-organised
crime programming, innovative and, therefore, has not
been tested to determine its effectiveness. But as each
is drawn from a known correlation (Annex II), the
likelihood of its achieving the intended objective is, at
leastconceptually,plausible.
Each recommendation needs to be further fleshed out
and appropriately modified to match the country
context in which it is to be implemented. For instance,
how to work with boda-boda drivers in Sierra Leone will
necessarily vary from a similar programme in Burundi,
as the history and culture of the two countries differ, as
do the structures and systems of the respective boda-
boda associations. From this author’s past experience,
it is believed, for example, that the boda-boda
organisation in Burundi is more nationalised than the
comparable associations of Sierra Leone and that
distinction is programmatically crucial. Nevertheless,
there could be significant commonalities across country
programmes for boda-boda drivers, as well as for each
of the other interventions, which is why they are being
presented. Careful country specific adaptation,
however,wouldstill be required.
It is also conceptually possible to combine one or more
of the following recommendations into more
comprehensive anti-corruption, governance, and/or
security and justice programmes. Where feasible, doing
so would be highly advantageous and may significantly
increase the likelihood of programmatic effectiveness.
For example, based upon the empirical data of Annex II,

14
it is recommended that improving tax collections can
reduce and/or prevent organised crime. A tax collection
project can, for instance, be integrated into a wider
public financial management development package,
one that includes support for transparent management
of public finances, as well as extractive resources and
land. An initiative to enhance the abilities of citizens to
pursue legal remedies against their government can be
a component of a wider judicial development
programme that includes training for prosecutors and
other government attorneys. In other words, the more
multi-dimensional the programme, the greater the
impact is likely to be. This report, however, is
exclusively focused on organised crime and the
associated empirical data related to a reduction or
prevention of organised crime activities. Therefore, this
report does not discuss such wider programmatic
options, especially when little or no reliable empirical
evidence exists.
Finally, this report does not, in the main, recommend
criminal justice and law enforcement projects, even if
they may be efficacious. As most of the literature on
organised crime focuses on criminal justice and law
enforcement, it was the original andexplicit objective of
this report to concentrate on other types of anti-
organised crime initiatives, those that lie outside of the
customary purview of criminal justice and law
enforcement, and for which empirical evidence exists of
itspotential efficacy.
As they were discussed in the text of the report, the
following list of recommended programming does not
include either (1) narrowly focused and highly targeted
collaborations between international (regional) and
national institutions in criminal justice or (2) youth and
gang programming that can be undertaken in urban
areas. Both were broached in the text of the report and
both types of initiatives appear to be fruitful
programmingoptions.
SubsidisedCommodities
Many governments subsidise consumable commodities,
such as sugar and bread. These subsidies are, often,
instituted as part of a pro-poor strategy. However,
subsidies to producers of consumable commodities
invariably generate organised crime through the
arbitrage between subsidised and market prices.
Eliminating commodity subsidies as a means to reduce
organised crime, however, does not necessarily mean
jeopardising and eliminating pro-poor subsidies.
Subsidies can be altered, directed to the consumers of
the goods rather than the producers of the
commodities. The Argentine/Brasilian welfare
payments that go directly to mothers/parents of
children if and when their children attend school and/or
are inoculated against disease may be an appropriate
model by which to redesign subsidies for sugar, bread,
and otherconsumablesandreduce organisedcrime.
Tax Collections
An inverse correlation exists between taxes
collected/tax evasion, corruption, and, therefore,
organised crime: higher rates of tax collection lowers
corruption and organised crime; lower rates of tax
collection increases levels of corruption and organised
crime. Given that governments, generally, seek to
increase their revenues, donor support to strengthen
tax administration and collection systems, along with
the laws and regulations by which taxes are collected
may be relativelyuncontentious.
Increasing tax revenues from individuals (income) and
businesses (sales, value added, customs) may prove to
have an added benefit of, over time, increasing public
demand for greater accountability and transparency,
which may be an added boon to reducing organised
crime and corruption.
Electoral Commissions
While exceptions may exist at the local level and one-off
individual prosecutions may have been successfully
pursued, the record of donor-supported anti-corruption
and accountability programmes is, generally, poor. In
fact, there appears to be an emerging consensus that
anti-corruption and accountability programmes that
seek to strengthen anti-corruption commissions,
parliaments, internal affairs/professional standards
units, and/or judicial inspection units are largely
ineffective or, at best, inconclusive, while the evidence
for social accountabilityschemesisdecidedlymixed.92
At the same time, there seems to be little evidence that
any one type of electoral system is more or less prone
to the vicissitudes of corruption.93
Furthermore, there
is a direct correlation between one-party states and
high levels of organised crime. An alternation and
rotation of power by political parties, if achievable,
seems plausible, therefore, as a means to reduce

15
corruption and organised crime. Such an alternation of
political power may also be one of the keys to increase
accountability mechanisms – and, therefore,
governance processes –more generally.
However, to achieve such a rotation of political poweris
beyond the leverage of an international actor. What an
external actor may have the political leverage to pursue
with the expenditure of political capital, in certain
countries, is the establishment of autonomous electoral
commissions that might have the ability, over time, to
ensure thatelectionsare foughtona level playingfield.
Legal Claimsagainst the Government
An inverse relationship exists between citizens’ suits
against a government for alleged wrongful actions
(usually administrative) and lower rates of organised
crime. The international community can readily assist in
promoting the pursuit of such legal claims by supporting
an NGO that undertake such legal actions on behalf of
individuals. Similarly, support could be given to the
recipient country’s national Bar Association in
representing litigants against the government, whether
individual or class action. This type of support should
become a common and routine component of justice
and security development.94
It is likely that a recipient
government could request assistance for its legal offices
so that they are better able to defend government
actions.
As with tax collections and electoral commissions, the
recipient government’s commitment to fight organised
crime can be measured by increases in its annual
budgetary allocation to legal officers defending the
government against suits, whether the legal process for
bringing suits against the government adheres to
international standards and the record of enforcement
of decisionsagainstthe government.
Business, Legal, and Court Regulations, Rules, and
Procedures
Due to the ability of bureaucrats to leverage their ability
to seek rents, a direct correlation exists between the
number of administrative transactions required to
achieve a stated objective (registering a business, court
procedures, granting of a driver’s license, purchasing
and registering property, acquiring a construction
permit, etc.) and corruption and organised crime.
Increased numbers of transactions are, frequently, due
to overly complex and bureaucratic procedures,
juridical ones too. Streamlining administrative and
judical processes and procedures reduces the potential
for corruption and organised crime.95
Varying types of
one-stop shopping fora have been initiated and many,
though not all, appear to be successful in reducing
bureaucracy.96
It is therefore recommended that a recipient
government’s commitment to fight organised crime be
measured by its progressively streamlining its court and
judicial procedures and that this indicator be routinely
usedas an indicatorof goodgovernance.
Availabilityof/Accessto Small BusinessLoans
The greater extent to which an economy is dominated
by monopolies is directly correlated to higher levels the
corruption and organised crime. It is alleged that a
vibrant small business sector can militate against the
encroachment of monopolies, assuming that the
regulations for the registration and incorporation are
streamlined (see above) and that availability and access
to loans is feasible. Economic development
programmes, therefore, can concentrate on this slice of
the private sector and by doing so fortify anti-organised
crime initiatives.
State-OwnedMedia
It is often claimed that increased media, better and
more plentiful journalists, access to information, and
knowledge of rights are key to improved accountability
across numerous dimensions. There is little to no
evidence for these suppositions. On the other hand,
there is a direct correlation between the levels of
organised crime and the degree to which state-
owned/run companies dominate the media markets. It
seems that the causal variable is not the number,
training, and skills of journalists, but rather the
existence of independent media outlets vis-a-vis state-
run media outlets. Consequently, support for the
growth of independent media outlets can be a ‘rule
changing’initiative.
Judicial Development
Greater judicial independence, along with greater
judicial consistency, coherence, and quality of legal
reasoning, is inversely associated with lower levels of
organised crime. Unfortunately, the concept of judicial

16
independence is exceedingly difficult to define and
determine, let alone support through external
assistance. It tends to be understood more in its
absence than its presence. It may, however, be
plausible to design a process for the selection of judges
that reduces political interference and promotes more
qualified rather than less qualified judges, but that is a
notoriously difficult political road for external actors to
hoe. The same holds true for constructing
methodologies by which to evaluate judicial
performance.
Legal reasoning, its consistency and coherence, is
readily understandable and well-structured trainings
can be developed to strengthen these characteristics. If
coupled with streamlining court procedures (see
above), there is the possibility that the combination will
produce beneficial results. As a mechanism to monitor
this efficacy of this support, it is recommended that
assistance is provided to the recipient country’s Bar
Associationandwell-skilled,national legal NGOs.
Boda-Boda Drivers Across Sub-Sahara Africa
Across sub-Sahara Africa is a marginalised demographic
group, boda-boda drivers, who at one and the same
time are (1) the current and future economic engines of
their societies, whose provision of transportation
services is hampered by undue and burdensome
regulations,97
(2) victims of systemic organised crime;
(3) young men who are feared for their engagement in
criminal activities and the violence against women that
they alleged perpetuate, (4) members of the largest civil
society organisations in their respective countries, and
(5) a readily available resource of labour for organised
crime enterprises. Opportunities exist to undertake
targeted development programming for this
demographic group across sub-Sahara Africa through
their already existing civil society organisations. Such
initiatives that could have significant long-term positive
repercussions on organised crime and, perhaps,
counteringviolentextremismaswell.
What this support entails will vary from country to
country. Among the possible avenues of support are:
strengthening the ability of the boda-boda
organisations to provide social benefits to their
membership; building more collaborative relationships
between boda-boda organisations and national police
services; enhancing the ability of boda-boda drivers to
own and repair their vehicles; establishing relationships
between boda-boda associations and European labour
unions; improving road safety; and devising anti-
alcoholism and ending violence against women
programming for boda-boda drivers. This is not
intended to be a comprehensive list of possible
programmatic ideas, but only an introductory range of
possibilities.
It likely that external donor will have to spend
significant capital in order to convince recipient
governments to permit support to be provided to boda-
boda drivers and their organisations. It is
recommended, therefore, that the granting of
permission to provide such support be made
conditional for assistance to police development in
those countries in which boda-boda drivers provide a
significant percentage of that country’s transport
services. (It should be noted that the same logic applies
to mini-vanservicesinAfricancountries.)
Marginalisationin General
As already discussed above, marginalised and
vulnerable groups – religious, ethnic, geographic – are a
breeding ground for organised crime, partially as a
ready source of labour. Comparable to the strategies
discussed about how to reduce youth and gang
participation, initiatives addressing the social-political-
economic marginalisation of large ethnic and religious
demographic groups, such as the Tuareg and Tebu in
Libya, are essential. When this author met with Tuareg
representatives in Libya, three years ago, for example,
they were explicit in wanting to be better integrated
within Libyan society, its economics and politics.
Whether such integration would reduce the level of
Tuareg participation in organised crime is open for
debate. Nevertheless, their being better integrated
removes two of the ways with which organised crime in
Tuareg areas fortifies itself, namely (1) defending the
legitimate grievances of the Tuareg and (2) providing
public goods and services that the Libyan state does not
deliver – the “governance function” of some organised
crime enterprises.
It must be acknowledged, however, that Arab Libyans
would strenuously object to any outside political
interference and advocacy on behalf of the Tuareg or
Tabu. In fact, this author was informed that most
Libyans do not believe that either ethnic group is
considered Libyan and that the Libyan state is for
Libyans only. Setting aside the possibility that the

17
Libyan situation is more extreme than other
marginalisation challenges (though not more extreme
than the Rohingya in Myanmar), political opposition can
be expected wherever social marginalisation occurs and
outside assistance is attempted to minimise the
vulnerabilities.
ENDNOTES:
1 See Ivan Briscoe, et al., eds. Illicit Networks and Politics in Latin America. (International IDEA, 2014); see also the case studies in the compilation,
Camino Kavanagh, ed. Getting Smart and Scaling Up: Responding to the Impact of Organized Crime on Governance in Developing Countries. (Center
on International Cooperation, 2013).
2 Such as specific functional zones (e.g. Bahram Chah on the Afghan-Pakistan border). This applies equally to the counterfeit drugs, heroin, timber,
and humanbeings.
3 A recent article argues, for instance, that the many migrants heading into Europe are well aware that they are the commodity their smugglers
buy, sell, and transport, Jacob Townsend and Christel Oomen, Before the Boat: Understanding the Migrant Journey. (Migration Policy Institute,
2015). For instance, a migrantseeking to being smuggled into Europe will have a differentset of motivations, expectations,and choices, depending
upon whether he or she is originally from Syria or Ghana; has spent two wee ks awaiting transit through Bulgaria by truck or, after two months,
awaiting shipment across the Mediterraneandepartingfrom Libya.
4 This implicitlyandexplicitlyincludes militarystrategyas well.
5 This has been called the “governance” function that organised crime can perform, (John de Boer and Louise Bosetti, The Crime-Conflict “Nexus”:
State of the Evidence, United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, Occasional Paper # 4, 2015, p. 8) and can be analysed in countries from
Brasil to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kenya to Mali, and Afghanistan to the countries in Central America. In Nepal, however, itappears that orga nised
crime does not exercise a governance functionanddeliverypublic goods andservices, see Getting Smart, p. 75.
6 For a broad and comprehensive survey of the current literature, see Getting Smart, 2013; Illicit Networks, 2014; Ignoring or Interfering?
Development Approaches to Transnational Organized Crime, Berlin, 27-28 November 2014; Crime-Conflict Nexus, 2015.
7 Interview anddiscussion withJames Cockayne, September 2015;interview and discussionwith Mark Shaw, September 2015.
8 Final report of the Panel of Experts on Liberia submitted pursuant to paragraph 5 (f) of Security Council resolution 2079 (2012), November 25,
2013, S/2013/683.
9 Getting Smart, p. 79.
10 This author has been unable to find the empirical evidence to support this assertion. That this author has not been able to do so, however, does
not implythat suchevidence does not exist.
11 This author has personal experience with International Justice Mission, who range of programmes includes anti -sex trafficking, anti-child abuse,
indenturedservitude (modern slavery) and other anti-organisedcrime activities.
12 New York Times, 13 October 2015, p. D4. The NGO is dedicated to protecting wildlife in Africa by targeting the international trafficking of
animals and animalparts.
13 Interview anddiscussion withIvanBriscoe, September 2015.
14 This is known as the ‘balloon effect,’ where organised crime enterprises, in response to anti -crime initiatives, move their operations to those
geographic areas where theyhave more roomto operate.
15 See Getting Smart, “criminal enterprises operate as networks rather than hiera rchical structures, and that these connected nodes have linkages
among themselves and others, as well as varying levels of participation in network activities, including a core and periphery” (p. 6). Social Network
Analysis, a technique where one maps the distribution of power and influence within networks, also offers insights into the operating structures of
networks.
16 “UNODC surveyed 40 organized criminal groups. Based on the coded survey half of the structures of the sampled criminal organizations had a
standard hierarchical structure with (1) strong internal lines of control and discipline; (2) single leadership coordination; and (3) a strong social or
ethnic identity” (UNODC, 2006, 80; cited in Yuliya Zabyelina, Transnational Organized Crime in International Relations. Central European Journal of
International and Security Studies (CEJISS). Vol. 4. No. 2, 2010, p. 16).
17 ‘Value added’ can be defined as ‘niche’ skills (e.g. chemistry, piloting, or finance) or ‘locational/functional/managerial’ (e.g. the importance of
coordinationand/or leadership).
18 Economic theory postulates that the highest value added is, typically, also the highest per capita/unit cost factor. Whether that holds true for
the products of organised crime remains to be studied.
19 Development Responses to Serious Organised Crime, Workshop hosted by DFID and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime,
14-15 October 2015, readout preparedbyBenChallis/DFID.
20 In a crime analysis, itshould be noted that ‘value added’ differs from ‘rent differential,’ in that the latter examines the monetary gain a particular
product or service accrues to the criminal in an attempt to understand why particular products or services have become criminalised.
Theoretically, a change in the rent accrued will vary the supply of the product or service. A ‘value added’ analysis, as used in this report, refers to
the value of the activity performed by an actor within a criminal enterprise in order to discriminate between and amoung the various activities
undertaken.
21 See Illicit Networks.
22 In many countries, including Mali, “criminal groups barter for political influence and protection, identifying members of the state architecture
who can be relied upon to represent their interests, or working to place their own candidates within institutions, through buying offices or
elections… [Because of the levels of personal trust required, this leads] to significant strategic alliances between criminal actors and state officials
[that] are often formed on the basis of clan or family ties, or relationships formed in childhood. The result is that zones o f protection and criminal
networks of patronage center around one or two key individuals who will sit at the nexus of criminality and governance, serving as a bridge

18
between the two worlds,” Tuesday Reitano and Mark Shaw, Fixing a Fractured State? Breaking the Cycles of Crime, Conflict and Corruption in Mali
and Sahel. The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, 2015, p. 26.
23 Carlo Morselli and CynthiaGiguere, Legitimate strengths incriminal networks” Crime, Law & Social Change, Vol. 45. 2006, p. 188
24 This author designeda small arms programme in Honduras, obtainingall the requisite agreements from the President’s Chief of Staff, the chief of
the National Police (the agency that seized most of the small arms), and the military (the organisation that stored and destroyed the seized guns).
Unfortunately, the economics of the small arms market were overlooked – the income rank and file police derived from weapons theyseized – and
the programme was scuttled when police officers informed senior police officers that their lives would be in danger if the programme proceededas
originally planned. Similarly, in the Congo it was decided, to reduce the numbers of ‘shadow police,’ that police salaries would be paid
electronically, the bankaccounts and records being the wayto guarantee accountability. As this author was told, however, the bank tellers resisted
the initiative because theirincomes were being negatively affected by the electronic payment system, given their role as a distribution channel of
police pay. All of them – along with the individual Honduran police officers, Congolese bank tellers, and Afghan migrant workers – are part of
organisedcrime’s informal political-economy.
25 Peter Tinti, Illicit Trafficking and Instability in Mali: Past, Present and Future. The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, 2014, p.
9; see also Fixing a Fractured State: “networks of corruption and collusion were established, they were well placed to adapt to flows of other illicit
goods” and that “there is only an incremental increase to the cost of diversifying illicit operations into new markets… a group smuggling
commodities may comfortablyexpand operations to the smuggling of pharmaceutical products. A boat transiting with migrants i n one direction
will see no net cost to returning witha cachet ofarms” pp. 14, 23).
26 Before the Boat.
27 Benjamin OlkenandRohini Pande, Corruption in Developing Countries. WorkingPaper 17398;http://www.nber.org/papers/w17398.
28 JudithVorrath, From War to Illicit Economies Organized Crime and State-building in Liberia and Sierra Leone. SWPResearch Paper, 2014.
29 See James Cockayne, Chasing Shadows: Strategic Responses to Organised Crime in Conflict Affected Situation. Royal United Services Institute for
Defence & SecurityStudies, Vol. 158, No. 2 , 2013; Hidden Power: The Strategic Logic of Organized Crime (Hurst, forthcoming 2016).
30 Hidden Power.
31 Interview anddiscussion withJames Cockayne, September 2015.
33 In Kenya, the most recent Auditor General’s report states that only1.2% of the nationalbudget for 2013-14 was incurredlawfully, effectively,
and canbe properlyaccountedfor.
34 Guatemala, however, does offer a model of how, at a minimum, to challenge this inbred situation, namely by partially ‘outsourcing’ some
agencies of the criminal justice system, inthis case to the UN throughthe International CommissionAgainst ImpunityinGuatemala (CICIG).
36 See also DIFDWorkshop.
37 Interview anddiscussion withIvanBriscoe, October 2015.
38 Interview anddiscussion withMarkShaw, September 2015.
39 Mark Shaw, “South Africa’s place in the global criminal economy:” Keynote address: Criminology and Victimological Society of Southern Africa,
October 2015.
40 Ibid, p. 5.
41 Ibid, p. 6.
42 See Annex II for the foundational empiricaldata uponwhich thisreport’s programmatic recommendations are grounded.
43 It must be noted that organised crime exists in every country and is a phenomenon that cannot be eradicated, as it is part of the human
condition. The challenge is to circumscribe it as much as possible, reduce its influence, and ensure that there is not assumption of impunity for
those whoengage init.
44 See Getting Smart and Julia Anderson, et al. Evaluating Success in Tackling Transnational Organised Crime Overseas. UK Office for Security and
Counter-Terrorism, 2015.
45 Evaluating Success, p. 84.
46 Ibid.
47 Jessie Banfield, Crime and Conflict:The New Challenge for Peacebuilding. International Alert, 2014, p. 26.
48 Evaluating Success, p. 45. The concept of “ungoverned spaces” is a misnomer, to say the least. Vast swathes of Libya, forinstance, have neve r
been norare now ‘ungoverned,’ although it may be true that they have only tenuously been governed by the ‘central Libyan government/state.’
The same holds true for parts of Myanmar, for example or some of the favelas of Brasil or the barrios of Bogota (Cuidad Bolivar), Cali (Aquablanca),
or the areas under control of the FARC. The relative absence of the institutions and agencies of the central state cannot be equated with the
absence of structural and institutional arrangements for the provision of public goods and services. It is only from a Western Westphalian
perspective, therefore, that these areas can be conceived of as ‘ungoverned.’ Analytically, politically, and economically, it is more reasonable and
prudent to tryto comprehendsuchareas as havingalternative structural andinstitutionalgovernance systems.
49 Emphasis added.
50 Evaluating Success, p. 22.
51 While it is important, therefore, to enhance these accountability systems and mechanisms, doing so will not necessarily result in reducing
organised crime. It should also be noted that the effectiveness of donor-sponsored accountability programming is, at best, very doubtful, see Ivar
Kolstad, Verena Fritz, and Tam O’Neil. Corruption, Anti-corruption Efforts and Aid: Do Donors Have the Right Approach? Working Paper # 3,
Overseas Development Institute. 2008. The likelihood of generating positive results is minimal, if and when an accountability/anti-corruption
initiative’s underlying theoretical approach depends upon the ‘principal agent model,’ see Bo Rothstein, Anna Persson, and Ja n Teorell, “Why
Anticorruption Reforms Fail—Systemic Corruption as a Collective Action Problem.” Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration,

19
and Institutions, (2008); Bo Rothstein, Anti-Corruption: The Indirect ‘Big Bang’ Approach, Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 18, No. 2,
228- 250 (2011); and David Booth, Development as a Collective Action Problem, Addressing the Real Challenges of African Governance. Overseas
Development Institute, 2012. Independent accountability and anti-corruption commissions have, largely, failed in Kenya and Nigeria, while, in
Botswana, an independent commission has been shown to be, at least, partially, successful, see Melissa Khemani, Rule of Law and the
Administration of Justice, Georgetown University Law Center, 2009. The record of social accountability efforts is highly mixed, see Rosemary
McGee & John Gaventa. Review of Impact and Effectiveness of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives: Synthesis Report. Institute of
Development Studies, 2010.
52Edgardo Buscaglia and Jan van Dijk, Controlling Organized Crime and Corruption in the Public Sector, Forum on Crime and Society, Vol. 3. Nos 1
and 2, UNODC, 2003, pp. 3-34. The study included a vast range and types of countries from Finland to Venezuela, Denmark to Mongolia, and
Belgium to Bulgaria to Zimbabwe.
53 One-party rule includes governments de facto dominated by military regimes (Egypt, Pakistan, Fiji) or liberation movements (Mozambique,
Angola, Zimbabwe) whohave effectivelyenshrinedthemselves intooffice despite a façade of democratic elections.
54 Rentier states are those where the primary money flows are from the state/government to the people (through various types of entitlements)
due to the income generated by the state’s ownership (partial or complete) and exploitation of natural resources, causing the state/government to
be financiallyindependent from the citizenry.
55 Libya is a classic example of a one-party and rentier state, which subsequently collapses; but see also, Evaluating Success, p. 86, where it is
asserted that in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries that a pre -existing black market trade in cigarettes and
other products predatedthe emergence ofhighlystructuredandorganisednetworks of humansmuggling anddrugtransit inpost-Soviet countries.
56 Controlling Organized Crime, p. 19.
57 “Fragility and limited economic opportunities are not sufficient indicators [for organised crime. What is required for organi sed crime] “to
materialise, it is essential that the country also has some geographical proximity to major markets or to trafficking routes towards these markets,”
Evaluating Success, p. 47.
58 William Reno. Understanding Criminalityin West African Conflicts. International Peacekeeping, Vol. 16. No. 1., February 2009, pp. 47-61;see also
Patrick Gavigan. Organized Crime, Illicit Power Structures and Guatemala’s Threatened Peace Process. International Peacekeeping, Vol. 16. No. 1.,
February2009, pp. 62-76.
59 Crime-Conflict Nexus, p. 3.
60 See for instance, Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic, et al. Organised crime and international aid subversion:evidence from Colombia and Afghanistan. Third
World Quarterly, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2015.1070664; James Cockayne and Adam Lupel. Conclusion: From Iron Fist to Invisible Hand – Peace
Operations, Organized Crime and Intelligent International Law Enforcement. International Peacekeeping, Vol. 16. No. 1, February 2009, pp. 151-68;
interview and discussion with a senior UN-DPKO official in Liberia, September 2015; international involvement that ‘stays on the sidelines and
asserts that it is strictly neutral’ will, in these circumstances, reinforce the prerogatives of organised crime. This may be a defensible political
position, but that does not obscure the ramifications of the political choice.
61 See the recent article onthe jade trade inMyanmar, Jade: A Global Witness Investigation into Myanmar’s ‘Big State Secret’, 2015.
62 See Vanda Felbab-Brown. Opium Licensing in Afghanistan:Its Desirability and Feasibility. Foreign Policy at Brookings, Policy Paper No. 1, 2007;
Vanda Felbab-Brown. Peacekeepers Among Poppies: Afghanistan, Illicit Economies and Intervention. International Peacekeeping, Vol. 16. No. 1,
February2009, pp. 100-14;MatthieuAikins. Afghanistan: The Making ofa Narco-State. Rolling Stone. 4 December 2014.
63 See Getting Smart in which it is argued that fragile-vulnerable, conflict-affected, and post-conflict countries lack the basic essentials upon which
the specialisedanti-organisedcrime, gang, and corruptionunits that are essential parts ofeffective criminal justice programming.
64 Interview anddiscussion withIvanBriscoe, October 2015;author’s own researchinColombia.
65 It is important to note that throughout this report ‘the state’ is defined broadlyand encompasses much more than the formal institutions and
agencies, legally constituted and internationally recognised. Rather ‘a state’ may be understood to include the range of public authorities that
mediate and regulate social order, formallyandinformally. In vulnerable-fragile, conflict-affected, and post-conflict countries that implies a jumble
of de jure and de facto organisations and jurisdictions, as well as competing legitimacies, only some of which are internationally recognised. It is
the position of this report that what defines any given ‘state’ is an empirical question to be determined from within the society under examination
and from without by the rules and stipulations of the international community. It should be also noted that the spectrum of ‘sta tes’ ranges from
(1) ‘institutional coherence,’ despite, in some ‘states,’ the concurrent existence of different forms of jurisprudence and normative values, whose
reconcilabilityis filled with tension to (2) ‘institutional multiplicity,’ with actively competing, distinct, and legitimate institutions and agencies, with
varying norms andincentive structures, a situationthat sooner or later leads to conflict.
66 Libya: A Growing Hub for Criminal Economies and Terrorist Financing in the Trans -Sahara. The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised
Crime, (2015), p. 8.
67 StabilisationUnit, The UKGovernment’s Approach to Stabilisation, (2014), p. 2.
68 Ibid, p. 3. The sequencing of stability and political settlement is a long-debated topic. In Nepal, for instance, basic stability had been achieved
long before a political settlement had been reached, assuming one has now been. In Kosovo, the international communityimposed stability, while
a political settlement continues to be elusive. InKenya’s recent electoral violence, on the other hand, the political settlement producedstability.
69 Conversationanddiscussionwitha senior UN official, September 2015.
70 Ibid.
71 Charles Taylor didmuchthe same when he ranfor President of Liberia, threatening violence if he didnot winthe election.
72 As part of establishing the ‘rulesof the game,’ a settlement also seekto solidifythe state’s legitimacyalong five dimensions by:
 adheringto societalnorms andvalues;
 increasingsafetyand securityfor persons, property, and services;
 delivering andproviding greater accessto public goods and services;

20
 promotinglibertysothat individuals andgroups canexercise greater control andpower over their own lives;and
 Solidifyinga redresssystem for the resolutionof disputesandconflicts.
73 UKGovernment’s Approach to Stabilisation, p. 2.
74 It is HMG policy to try to ensure that political settlements “gather and consider the perspectives of different groups, including those traditionally
under-represented such as women, youth and ethnic or religious minorities,” Ibid.
75Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Peter Evans (ed.), Bringing the State Back In, (Cambridge : Cambridge
UniversityPress, 1985), pp. 169-191.
76 The political settlement is “the expression of a common understanding, usually forged between elites, about how (economic, coercive and
political) power and resources are organised and exercised between competing groups in a state (who is included and served etc.),” UK
Government’s Approach to Stabilisation p. 3.
77 See also, DIFDWorkshop.
78 UKGovernment’s Approach to Stabilisation p. 3.
79 The challenge becomes particularly acute when organised crime enterprises have, in certain geographic areas and with certain demographic
groups, sought to and have legitimised themselves.
80 From War to Illicit Economies, p. 11.
81 Chasing Shadows, p. 19.
82 Crime-Conflict Nexus, p. 11; see also DFIDWorkshop.
83 Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990-1992. (Cambridge MA and Oxford UK: Blackwell, 1992);see also, Douglass C North,
John J Wallis and Barry R. Weingast, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. (Cambridge, UK
and NewYork, NY:Cambridge UniversityPress, 2009).
84 One of the first ‘police services’ in London – and a model for the Metropolitan Police, was the 1798 ‘river police,’ whose obligation was to
‘protect’ trade on the Thames. The 1800 Bow Street ‘police’ patrols concentrated on London’s main thoroughfares so that commerce could move
readilyinto, through, andout ofLondon.
85 Crime-Conflict Nexus, p. 12; see also DFIDWorkshop.
86 See, DFID, Building Peaceful States and Societies:A DFID Practice Paper (undated), p. 12.
87 Ibid, p. 6.
88 Ibid. p. 9.
89 It is misguided to believe that criminal justice programming can be hived off from political considerations and be deemed ‘non-political.’ While
criminal justice programming can be ‘marketed’ as cordoned-off, the perceptions in the countryin which such programming is conducted bespeaks
to a different reality. In countries in which organised crime is rooted, there is no such phenomenonas ‘cordoned-off’ programming. It is axiomatic
in such countries that those who are implicated in and prosecuted for being criminals have been singled out for political reasons and not simply
because they‘criminals.’ The Chinese anti-corruptioncampaign is a case inpoint.
90 Policing the Context: Principles and Guidance to Inform International Policing Assistance, (StabilisationUnit, 2014), p. 48.
91 This author, for instance, doubts that, over the last 18 years, he has worked with more than a handful of political and government partners in
fragile-vulnerable, conflict-affected and/or post-conflict countries who are not involved in criminal/corrupt activities. When he posed this question
at a DFID workshop a few years ago, attended by DFID country office governance and conflict advisors, only one or two attendees believed that
theywere workingwith political or government partners withclean hands.
92 Contextual Choices in Fighting Corruption: Lessons Learned. Report 4/2011, NORAD; Bryane Michael and Nigel Moore. What do we know about
corruption(and anti-corruption)inCustoms?World Customs Journal. Volume 4. No. 1. 2010;see alsofootnote 51 for additionalreferences.
93 JeffreyFischer, et al. (eds). Political Finance in Post-Conflict Societies. USAID, 2006.
94 Such suits against a police service is a superb method of holding the police accountable for its performance and from the data collected from
such legal actions, excellent informationcanbe obtaineduponwhichto establishdevelopment baselines andcontinuingprogrammes.
95 The WorldBank, Trends in Corruption and Regulatory Burden in Eastern European Countries, 2011; U4 Expert Answer, Reducing Bureaucracyand
Corruption Affecting Small and Medium Enterprises. Anti-CorruptionResource Centre, http://r4d.dfid.gov.uk/pdf/outputs/U4/expertanswer-
380.pdf, accessedNovember 2015;it shouldbe notedthat recommendation does not suggest that regulations are inherentlybad, but that overly
onerous bureaucratic procedures are.
96 Georgia has been a successful case in streamlining administrative and bureaucratic processes and procedures, see The World Bank, Fighting
Corruption in Public Services: Chronicling Georgia's Reforms, 2012. On the otherhand, Afghanistan may not have had similar success in a project
intendedto reduce the number of steps required to register a vehicle from 51 to 3,
(Civil-Military Fusion Centre. Corruption & Anti-Corruption Issues in Afghanistan, February 2012, p. 11). Unfortunately, according to the Asia
Society, this simplification did not reduce corruption;see The Growing Challenge of Corruption in Afghanistan: Reflections of a Survey of the Afghan
People, Part 3 of 4. OccasionalPaper No. 15, July2012.
97 David Booth, et al., Poverty and Transport: A report prepared for the World Bank in collaboration with DFID. Overseas Development Institute,
2000; Sarah Kaufman, et. al., Mobility, Economic Opportunity
and New York City Neighborhoods. NYU Wagner Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, 2014; Paul Starkey and John Hine,
Poverty and Sustainable Transport: How transport affects poor people with policy implications for poverty reduction – A literature review. Overseas
Development Institute, 2014; Raj Chettyand Nathaniel Hendren, The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility: Childhood Exposure
Effects and County-Level Estimates, http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/hendren/files/nbhds_paper.pdf, accessedOctober 2015.

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