Development Dialogue, Latinoamérica y el Caribe

Resilience Dialogues: bringing forward the local perspectives in OC

...On August 7, 2017, The Global Initiative hosted its first Resilience Dialogues in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, Mexico. These dialogues were conceived as a series of events designed to integrate the local perspectives of communities that are most affected by organized crime into the discussions shaping the global pol...

Posted on 12 Sep 2017

#GIDisappearances, Development Dialogue, Latinoamérica y el Caribe, Resilience Fund

Resilience in Sinaloa: Community Responses to Organized Crime

Resilience in Sinaloa: Community Responses to Organized Crime

Posted on 05 Sep 2017

Global Initiative

The Role of Smugglers in Protection for the People the Move

...ore perversely empower, strengthen and enrich smugglers, and increase the chances that smuggling becomes predatory. This triggers a vicious policy cycle that is visible in Africa now, or along the US-Mexico border: Smuggling becomes so exploitative and abusive that it becomes described as ‘trafficking’. Traffickers are used as a justification to impose harsher border controls and policies to...

Posted on 19 Jun 2017

Assassination Witness, Latinoamérica y el Caribe, Protecting Politics, Resilience Fund

Justicia para Javier

...On May 15, the body of Javier Valdez Cardenas was perforated by 13 bullets outside the offices of Riodoce, the weekly newspaper he co-founded in Culiacan, Sinaloa, in northwest Mexico. Valdez was one Mexico’s most prominent journalists covering drug trafficking, from the heart of one of the biggest criminal organisations in the world, the Sinaloa Cartel. Valdez took the s...

Posted on 29 May 2017

Development Dialogue

Event: Downstream Oil Theft: Global Trends, Modalities and Remedies

...he study makes the case that downstream oil theft is one of the most profitable criminal enterprises in the world and is often used to help sustain other forms of organized transnational crime. In Mexico, the violent Zetas cartel controls about 40% of a billion-dollar black market in illicit fuel. Former rebels from Sudan and the DRC have re-established themselves as fuel smugglers—often bringing t...

Posted on 07 Mar 2017

Gold Watch, Latinoamérica y el Caribe

Mercury: illicit flows with damaging impacts

... gold mining in Latin America exemplifies this economic decision making. Soaring gold prices greatly increased the profitability of gold mining, whilst the “War on Drugs”, notably in Colombia and Mexico, sharply reduced the profitability of drug trafficking. As a result, there were considerable incentives for the criminal groups that control the drug trade to move into gold mining. The change of str...

Posted on 04 Jan 2017

Latinoamérica y el Caribe, Protecting Politics

Protecting Politics: Deterring the Influence of Organized Crime on Political Parties

...s insights into these issues, as well as potential strategies for preventing and mitigating relationships between criminals and political actors, by looking at the specific cases of Georgia, Mali and Mexico. This report builds on comparative research that International IDEA has conducted since 2011 under the umbrella of the Protecting Politics project, which broadly focuses on the threat that organiz...

Posted on 22 Sep 2016

Latinoamérica y el Caribe

Event: Peace with the FARC – ushering in a new chapter in Colombia’s history of crime and violence?

...there will be significant risks, that with the reconfiguration of the region’s criminal economies and the implications will have for the countries along the volatile drugs corridor from Colombia to Mexico and beyond. The seminar featured a keynote presentation by Jeremy McDermott of InsightCrime, a Colombia based Observatory currently engaged in developing local ‘Peace Maps’ with local governme...

Posted on 01 Sep 2016

Crime & Conflict, Latinoamérica y el Caribe

Easy Prey: Criminal Violence and Central American Migration

...Executive Summary Massive deportations from Mexico and the U.S. have failed to stem the tide of Central Americans fleeing endemic poverty combined with epidemic violence. Stepped up enforcement has diverted undocumented migration into more costly, ci...

Posted on 28 Jul 2016

Protecting Politics, Resilience Fund

It’s a dangerous time to be a journalist. So how do we protect them?

...ten connected to criminal networks, corrupt government officials, or both. Nowhere are the challenges that come with protecting journalists who seek to report on organised crime more acute than in Mexico, a country widely regarded as “one of the most dangerous countries in the world to defend human rights and practice journalism.” Per a recent report by WOLA and Peace Brigades International, “A...

Posted on 13 Jun 2016

Latinoamérica y el Caribe, Protecting Politics

Latest trends in Cocaine trafficking to Europe

...e in Dominican Republic seizures, which reached 86 metric tons in 2015. The apparent escalation of illegal trafficking through the Caribbean is described as a possible result of recent crackdowns in Mexico and Central America. West Africa's Bight of Benin -- between Ghana and Nigeria -- as well as the islands of Cape Verde, Madeira and the Canary Islands, make up the second major transit zone for c...

Posted on 02 Jun 2016

Crime & Conflict, Gold Watch, Latinoamérica y el Caribe

Organized Crime and Illegally Mined Gold in Latin America

Organized Crime and Illegally Mined Gold in Latin America

... In the first decade of the 21st century, two trends intersected: soaring gold prices greatly increased the profitability of gold mining, whilst the US led “War on Drugs”, notably in Colombia and Mexico (‘Plan Colombia’ and the ‘Mérida Initiative’), sharply reduced the profitability of drug trafficking from Latin America to the USA. As a result, there were considerable incentives for the cr...

Posted on 30 Mar 2016

Author(s): Livia Wagner