UNODC’s contribution to the end poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC is the specialized UN agency with the mandate to fight against “uncivil society”. To deliver on the MDGs by 2015, nations need resources. UNODC leads the global fight against corruption, drugs and crime and in the process free resources which can now be made available for development work. Through creative crime prevention strategies, poverty which is one of the root causes of crime is addressed. UNODC equally works with other partners to combat the HIV/AIDS scourge.

UNODC assistance to Nigeria
UNODC Country Office in Nigeria operates within an integrated and comprehensive Strategic Programme Framework (2005), focusing on partnership with key stakeholders to address crime and drug-related problems in Nigeria. Its priorities are mapped out under a Memorandum of Understanding on “Partnership Against Crime”, signed between UNODC and the Federal Government of Nigeria in June 2004, taking into account regional initiatives on drug control, money laundering and trafficking in human beings, as well as initiatives currently ongoing within ECOWAS, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS).

UNODC’s main activities in the past five years include:

• Assisting the Nigerian government in reducing the impact of financial and economic crime and corrupt practices on the development of Nigeria;
  
• Contribution to national efforts to curtail organized and urban crime;
  
• Awareness-building on drug abuse and HIV/AIDS prevention;
  
• Enhancement of national capacities to interdict trafficking in drugs and in persons, at national and international levels.

Anti-Corruption: UNODC is presently providing capacity-building through an EU-funded $34 million programme of support to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Nigerian Judiciary, to promote effective investigation and prosecution of crimes of a financial nature in the country.

Trafficking in Persons: UNODC is providing assistance to ECOWAS through a project on the implementation of the ECOWAS Plan of Action Against Trafficking in Persons, as well as Law Enforcement training through a second project titled Measures to Prevent and Combat Trafficking in Human Beings in the Western Africa Sub-Region. Within the auspices of the first project, a National Task Force on Trafficking in Persons was inaugurated on 4 October, 2006, to implement the National Action Plan on TIP. In Edo State, UNODC has put in place a coalition of NGOs that educate and provide micro credits to victims and potential victims of trafficking since 2003.

Drug law enforcement: UNODC is currently up-grading the NDLEA Academy in Jos to an international training centre for drug law enforcement servicing the sub-region.

Drug abuse and HIV/AIDS prevention: UNODC is also partnering with six tertiary institutions in Nigeria’s six geo-political zones to strengthen students affairs departments and provide training to students and university employees on the linkages between drug abuse and HIV/AIDS. Awareness campaigns have already been conducted at grassroots level in the rural communities of Lagos Island West Local Government Area of Lagos State and the Dala Local Government Area in Kano under this project.

More recently the Agency has commenced action to strengthen the service delivery capacities of the Nigerian Prisons Service through the Partnership for Prison Reform – a Fund-Raising Mechanism to support government’s reform of Prison Services round the country.


Contact for media : Pius Otuno, National Projects Coordinator, Tel:09- 4616560 or 08033076208, E-mail: pius.otuno@unodc.org
UNODC website