By Ilas Touazi - Africa Desk

Introduction

The growing link between transnational organised crime and terrorism has become a serious threat to human, national, and regional security. In areas such as the Sahel, West Africa, and the Great Lakes, these trends are intensifying humanitarian crises, poverty, and vulnerability, creating a ‘crime-terrorism continuum’ that spreads across the black hole spectrum of dynamics linked to state failure and grey zones. Since the creation of the African Union Police Cooperation Mechanism (AFRIPOL), security governance has undergone a process of institutionalisation and operationalisation, actively addressing the complex intersections between transnational terrorism and hybrid organised crime.

Genesis, context, and milestones in the creation of the African Police Cooperation Organisation

In a postmodern and globalised international context, there are close links with terrorist groups and organised crime networks at the national, regional, and transnational levels, through interconnected and destabilising challenges, which create heightened vulnerabilities in several African regions, thus threatening peace and security, exacerbating conflicts and fragility, and undermining development efforts. This is why the African continent has taken steps to establish the link between organised crime and terrorism, reflecting the connection between the concept of regional and global security emphasised in a post-Cold War context characterised by the breakdown of internal and external borders. Terrorist organisations in Africa are involved in organised crime, particularly jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Groups such as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen (JNIM), Boko Haram, and Al-Shabaab have carried out targeted operations exploiting weak state structures, regional criminal dynamics, and widespread corruption to engage in kidnapping for ransom and drug trafficking. As a result, African countries have been forced to take preventive measures to strengthen national and regional law enforcement and border control capabilities. This led to the creation of the African Police Cooperation Organisation (AFRIPOL), which is considered the new African Union for promoting cooperation against transnational organised crime, terrorism, and cybercrime, and for responding more effectively to the evolving and interconnected security threats facing the continent.

The establishment of AFRIPOL reflects Africa's awareness of the need for a preventive approach to the trans-nationalisation and hybrid nature of security threats linked to terrorism and organised crime, as part of a process that was initially developed at the 22nd Interpol African Regional Conference in 2013 in Oran, followed by the Algiers Declaration in 2014 at the African Conference of Directors and Inspectors General of Police on AFRIPOL. However, at the 23rd African Union Summit held in Equatorial Guinea in 2014, through the Algiers Declaration, the AU adopted ‘the common vision shared by police chiefs'. The meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Operationalisation of AFRIPOL played a pivotal role in creating this institutional architecture by reiterating the importance of cooperation, given the changing nature and modus operandi of organised crime and terrorist groups. African efforts continued with the adoption of the African Union's Agenda 2063 in 2015, an action plan aimed at establishing security and peace on the continent by strengthening intra-African cooperation in cybersecurity and border management. Subsequently, the AFRIPOL Statute was adopted in 2017 as a constitutive step in the institutionalisation of the joint African fight against the nexus between crime and terrorism. That is why, at the AU summit in Addis Ababa, working groups were set up to combat cross-border organised crime, cybercrime, terrorism, and violent extremism in all its forms, covering a wide range of complex threats, in particular organised terrorism in conflict zones, foreign terrorist fighters, and radicalised ‘lone wolves’.

AFRIPOL: Objectives, Missions, Legal System, and Organisational architecture 

AFRIPOL's main objectives were clearly defined in its 2017 legislative statute, in Article 3, paragraphs (a) to (g), with regional and international objectives. AFRIPOL aims to establish enhanced police cooperation at the strategic and operational levels by facilitating the prevention of transnational organised crime and terrorism. The creation of AFRIPOL is therefore in line with the AU's efforts to develop continental mechanisms for the sustainable promotion of peace and security. At the same time, AFRIPOL's missions are established under Article 4. They are specifically aimed at strengthening law enforcement agencies across the continent through operations to prevent and combat transnational organised crime, terrorism, and cybercrime. This enables public security agencies in Africa to respond more effectively to the evolving and interconnected security threats facing the continent. Nevertheless, AFRIPOL is specifically the African Union's technical institution responsible for strengthening and harmonising the capabilities of law enforcement agencies, including the framework capacity-building, coordination, and information-sharing missions of national police services.

The legal framework governing AFRIPOL also operates in accordance with the Constitutive Act and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, without interfering with the internal affairs of Member States and with full respect for their national legislation and democratic principles, as well as strict adherence to good governance and police ethics. AFRIPOL is a cooperative and consultative body within the AU's continental framework, designed as a step towards a more centralised transnational police force, partly inspired by the Europol security governance model. The establishment of AFRIPOL in 2015 marks a move away from fragmented, sub-regional forums towards a continent-level hub. AFRIPOL's institutions operate within the framework of exchanges of expertise and best practices, particularly in forensics and criminal analysis and in the use of new technologies and innovative security solutions. Furthermore, the Specialised Technical Committee on Defence, Safety and Security (CTSDSS) is responsible for providing leadership and guidance on policing issues in Africa. The organisational structure of the African Police Cooperation Organisation comprises main and subsidiary bodies. According to Article 7 of AFRIPOL's basic regulations, the organisational architecture comprises the General Assembly, the Steering Committee, the Secretariat, and the National Liaison Offices. Decision-making procedures are based on consensus; failing which, a two-thirds majority of member states present and entitled to vote shall suffice.

AFRIPOL mechanisms for cooperation in countering organised crime and transnational terrorism

AFRIPOL's cooperation and coordination mechanisms in the fight against crime and terrorism are structured around a triangular axis at the interregional, regional, and international levels. Article 19 of its statutes stipulates that cooperation shall be carried out with member states. With this in mind, AFRIPOL is actively engaged in an integrated partnership process with the African Union and the Peace and Security Council (PSC), and this is also being implemented through enhanced coordination with specialised institutions, namely the African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism (ACSRT) and the Committee on Intelligence and Security Services (CISSA). AFRIPOL plays a central role in inter-regional integration with African law enforcement bodies, led by regional police organisations such as EAPCCO, WAPCCO, CAPCCO, and SARPCOO, covering the eastern, western, central, and southern parts of the continent. AFRIPOL's sub-regional cooperation activities focus primarily on combating crime, transnational terrorism, money laundering, small arms trafficking, border management, human trafficking, environmental crime, and cybercrime. Operational security coordination is implemented on the ground through annual meetings of the directors of AFRIPOL liaison offices. The security and legal strategy to combat crime and terrorism has focused on operational achievements through the creation of a secret communication system for African police interoperability (AFSECOM) and the development of a system for disseminating research publications aimed at preventing, detecting, and investigating transnational organised crime and terrorism, in coordination with African national liaison offices (NLO) and regional institutions. 

At the international level, AFRIPOL has established a reinforced framework of strategic partnerships to anticipate the security impacts of transnational crime. In doing so, a commitment to multidimensional cooperation has been launched with specialised UN agencies, in particular the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). INTERPOL cooperates closely with African institutions in the fight against corruption, financial crime, fraud, and money laundering, having signed an agreement with the African Development Bank Group. Meanwhile, the INTERPOL Support Programme for AFRIPOL (ISPA) was launched, covering the period from 2020 to 2026, with the primary aim of helping the institution to carry out its functions across the continent. The ISPA programme provides enhanced support for AFRIPOL's governance and bolsters its capacity to combat criminal networks. More importantly, this cooperation has led to technical improvements in information and communication systems and support for AFRIPOL's Criminal Analysis Unit. At the transregional level, AFRIPOL is engaged in enhanced, tailored cooperation with Europol, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL), and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX). In addition, AFRIPOL is seeking to institutionalise the operationalisation of the fight against crime and terrorism with regional police organisations, namely ASEANAPOL, AMERIPOL, GCCPOL, and AIMC, with a focus on harmonising strategic planning and common global policing standards. 

Assessing the Role of the AFRIPOL in Countering Organised Criminal Terrorism: Opportunities, Challenges and Shortcomings 

African police cooperation is recognised as a key pillar in promoting regional peace and security through a shared operational front among Member States to combat crime and terrorism, with a focus on enforcing security policies and legal instruments relating to police cooperation and collaboration in Africa. Evidently, AFRIPOL plays a leading role in combating organised crime and transnational terrorism through prevention, detection, investigation, and coordination with national and regional institutions. AFRIPOL also provides technical assistance to its Member States, acting as an intermediary between African police forces and regional institutions, which is seen as an indicator of progress made in improving cooperation and information sharing at all levels. In this regard, partnerships with specialised international institutions, particularly INTERPOL, have made significant advances in combating the growing threat of cybercrime, such as Operation Serengeti 2.0, involving 18 African countries, which led to the arrest of 1,209 cybercriminals, the recovery of $97.4 million, and the dismantling of 11,432 malicious infrastructures. Indeed, the creation of AFRIPOL has been a major step forward in terms of strategic security vigilance and awareness, with a view to developing a harmonised African strategy against organised crime, terrorism, and cybercrime, and strengthening coordination under an operational technical architecture focused on intelligence sharing, harmonisation of methods, joint operations, and common databases and communication systems.

The mechanisms established by AFRIPOL remain inadequate and obsolete to combat hybrid threats at the regional and continental levels in response to the jihadist breakthrough and its unprecedented exploitation of transnational criminal networks, which is placing pressure on the African security apparatus. However, despite some operational advances, many shortcomings remain, particularly the lack of a truly coordinated strategy with consistent and disparate measures and the problems of overlap and duplication of mechanisms to combat organised crime and terrorism in the same theatre of operations. The AFRIPOL institution, on the other hand, faces major challenges, including financial constraints, internal security and state-sovereignty barriers, political interference, and problems related to information technology systems. Systemic contradictions also exist in the functioning of AFRIPOL, which is based on the mechanisms of the African Union, characterised like all pan-African organisations, and reflects the deep contradictions between countries on the continent. Alongside this, there is a certain ambiguity about the nature and limits of the AFRIPOL mechanism, especially in its legal status, which repeatedly emphasises the terms “assistance” and “facilitation”, thus highlighting the ineffectiveness of governance and the lack of coercive power to compel states to share data or participate in joint operations, leaving security coordination de facto to the sole discretion of the states, unlike other regional police organisations, primarily Europol, which operates within a dense, effective, and legally binding EU governance framework. 

Conclusions

The analysis highlighted the impact of the causal interrelationship between transnational organised crime and terrorism, with the changing nature of hybrid, multidimensional security threats acting as an accelerating factor that has prompted African countries to strengthen their institutional and operational governance capacities in terms of renewed security risk management within the framework of AFRIPOL. Undoubtedly, the establishment of these transregional police cooperation mechanisms has been an important step for African countries in strengthening security coordination, information sharing, capacity building for national police services, and joint cross-border operations, particularly in partnership with international and regional police bodies such as INTERPOL. Despite progress in institutional architecture to address the nexus between terrorism and organised crime in Africa, limitations and constraints remain, particularly when it comes to political conflicts and sovereignty issues, the precarious nature of non-binding legal status, and a glaring lack of financial resources.