Strengthening regional information-sharing & co-operation to fight terrorism in the Horn of Africa’

From 19 to 23 March 2018, a group of officials from law enforcement, police & intelligence agencies in Djibouti, Kenya, Uganda Somalia and South Sudan met for a one-week seminar at the International Peace Support Training Centre (IPSTC) in Karen, Nairobi. 

The seminar was organised by the Regional counter-terrorism (CT) law enforcement project – Horn of Africa  & Yemen, which is financed by the European Union (EU).  The implementation of the ongoing project, which is based at and working out of Nairobi, has been entrusted to a consortium of EU member state agencies. 

The objective of the regional seminar was to promote a better understanding of how partner countries in the Horn of Africa can engage in regional co-operation for investigations or intelligence sharing in counter-terrorism (CT) cases.  

The weeklong seminar consisted of a mix of presentations, group work and discussions, in order to map out the issues and challenges faced by the countries in the Horn of Africa.  These challenges result from the fact that terrorists and criminals do not respect borders.  This makes cross-border and international co-operation a necessity.  A number of European officials, who in their professional life back home are working as senior police officers, presented a number of cases in which they had been involved.  They also discussed the tools which EU member states use to facilitate information-sharing among law enforcement agencies in the EU member states. 

The overall objective of the EU-financed project is to strengthen the criminal justice process in partner countries in the fight against terrorists and criminals, with due respect for the rule of law and human rights’.