On the occasion of the Global Initiative’s 3rd Annual Advisory Board meeting, and the inauguration of our headquarters in Geneva, we were pleased to host an engaged debate on the need for relevant responses to organised crime as a priority to achieving the Sustainable Development Agenda on Wednesday 12th of October.

From mass-migration through human smuggling, spiralling levels of gang violence or bringing key species to the brink of extinction; illicit flows and the groups that enable them are increasingly being seen as a threat to peace, political transitions, good governance and sustainable development, and many of the consequences that they cause are irreversible.

Following welcome remarks by Ambassador Sabrina Dallafior, Deputy permanent representative of Switzerland to the United Nations in Geneva; Permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament, the discussion featured:

• Dr. Mark Shaw, Director, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized
  Crime (Chair)
• Ms. Sarah Cliffe, Chair of the Advisory Board and Director for the Centre of
  International Cooperation, New York University
• Ms. Gladwell Otieno, founder and Executive Director of the Africa Centre for
  Open Governance (AfriCOG)
• Amb. Ugliješa Zvekić, former Ambassador of Serbia to the United Nations in
  Geneva

A cocktail reception followed.