Author(s)

Laura Adal

Posted on 17 May 2024

From Ukraine and Gaza to Haiti and Sudan, conflict is one of the major issues of our time. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), which specializes in conflict data collection and analysis, 12% more conflicts were recorded in 2023 than in the previous year. One in six people are estimated to be living in active conflict zones. As with many global threats, organized crime is a common thread, and the ways in which it intersects with conflict and fragility are complex. Yet in the face of the challenges conflict presents, there is an opportunity for countries to strengthen sources of resilience to reduce the corrosive impact of criminal activities.

Organized crime can occur at any stage of a conflict: it can precede (and even cause) a conflict; it can emerge during a conflict and contribute to its duration; and, importantly, it can persist long after its resolution. Where conflict and fragility are present, social, economic and security institutions are diminished, often leaving populations to cope with shortages of goods and services. In addition, the disruption of formal economies and the displacement of civilians seeking to escape violence create economic disparities and vulnerabilities.

These gaps provide opportunities for criminal actors to exploit and for illicit activities to flourish. As the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index (henceforth, ‘the Index’) shows, many of the countries ranked as having the highest levels of criminality have been mired in conflict and instability for years, including Myanmar, Colombia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. From large formal conflicts to smaller, more pervasive hostilities, the majority (66%) of the countries ranked as the world’s most violent by ACLED are also in the top 50 rankings for criminality under the Index. (The Index covers the 193 UN member states, while ACLED monitors 234 countries and territories.)

The infiltration of illicit activities into fragile contexts not only exacerbates criminality, but also undermines countries’ ability to respond effectively and with meaningful and lasting impact. There is a strong negative correlation of -0.86 between the Index’s global resilience scores and the Fragile States Index. In other words, more fragile states are likely to be less resilient to organized crime.

But what does it mean to be resilient to organized crime? Understanding a country’s ability to withstand, disrupt and prevent organized crime is just as complex as understanding criminality itself. Recognizing that organized crime manifests itself differently in various contexts, including conflict settings, the Index’s resilience indicators are multi-sectoral, targeting areas of society at risk of exploitation by criminal groups through political, economic, legal and social measures.

Fundamentally, the Index’s ‘whole of society’ approach implies that the responsibility for resilience lies with state and non-state actors alike. This is crucial in light of the Index’s findings, which show that state fragility is closely linked to state-embedded actors, whose presence enables criminal markets to thrive amid corruption and limited governmental oversight. Put another way, institutions and actors that are mandated to respond to organized crime can, in some cases, hinder resilience and perpetuate criminality.

While this is certainly not true in all cases, and indeed many formal state structures have demonstrated integrity in their functions, the Index’s data shows a persistent global emphasis on institutional responses to organized crime at the expense of other areas. Governance-based resilience measures such as ‘international cooperation’ (with a global average of 5.87 out of 10) and ‘national policies and laws’ (5.48) not only received the highest scores in 2023, but also saw the largest increase since the 2021 iteration of the Index. Similarly, state-based criminal justice and security measures such as ‘territorial integrity’ and ‘law enforcement’ (ranked third and fourth, respectively) have remained consistently higher than more social-based resilience indicators.

However, a glaring deficit in the effectiveness of formal state responses to organized crime is seen in the Index’s ‘government transparency and accountability’ indicator, which was found to have the second lowest score of the 12 resilience indicators (4.36), and which saw a decline since 2021. While this data highlights the need for improvement in formal policies and strategies to counter organized crime, it should also serve as a warning against over-reliance on government-led and security-based strategies.

The 2023 Index results show a marked imbalance between securitization and non-state actor approaches, with social protection indicators scoring the lowest of all resilience groupings. For example, while the ‘non-state actors’ indicator – which takes into account the role of the media, the private sector and civil society in responding to organized crime – performed comparatively well against the overall global resilience average (4.72 out of 10), this indicator experienced the largest decline (-0.16) since 2021. Similarly, lower scores for measures such as ‘prevention’ and ‘victim and witness support’ (which scored the lowest of all resilience indicators at 4.24) would suggest that systems designed to protect those most vulnerable to the harms of organized crime are afforded little priority. ‘It is evident more needs to be done to address the relationship between organized crime and global trends, and the impact that illicit economies exert on governance and well-being,’ said Mark Shaw, director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

Non-state actors can supplement government responses and provide critical checks and balances on state institutions when they fall short, particularly in contexts of conflict. For example, in the aftermath of conflict, amid weakened institutions, community initiatives are well placed to provide ex-combatants with viable alternatives to criminal activities and violence. Civil society’s proximity to communities most affected by criminality makes it well-positioned to encourage local ownership of responses to organized crime, ultimately leading to long-lasting and sustainable resilience. However, of the most violent countries listed by ACLED, half have seen a decline in their ‘non-state actors’ resilience indicator under the Index since 2021.

Recognizing the importance of locally driven resilience, the GI-TOC’s Resilience Fund has launched the fifth edition of its Resilience Fellowship, which provides a platform for cross-sectoral, global and interdisciplinary collaboration between civil society actors, human rights activists, journalists, artists, scholars, policymakers, grass-roots community leaders and others working to counter the effects of organized crime.

The theme of the 2024 Fellowship, ‘Fragility and resilience’, is aimed at civil society actors who support communities in contexts of fragility, particularly those experiencing conflict. The Fellowship will bring together a cohort of civil society individuals working in various contexts of fragility. It will provide mentorship opportunities and capacity-building workshops as Fellows collaborate on exploring fragility and community resilience through a cross-cultural lens. The 2024 Fellowship will run from July 2024 to June 2025, with an open call for applications until 25 May 2024.

As organized crime continues to drive conflict and fragility all over the world, state actors are not alone in their ability to respond. From gang violence to protracted civil wars, non-state actors in the civic space are uniquely positioned to not only contribute to peacebuilding, but take on the social, economic and political drivers that lead to criminality and conflict from the ground up.

This analysis is part of the GI-TOC’s series of articles delving into the results of the Global Organized Crime Index. The series explores the Index’s findings and their effects on policymaking, anti-organized crime measures and analyses from a thematic or regional perspective.