Civil Society Observatory of Illicit Economies in Asia-Pacific — November Update
Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime
Reducing the global harms caused by organized crime and simultaneously building resilience to it.
This month, we’re delighted to include an update on two major events that we’ve worked with partners to deliver: The Mekong Development Dialogue 2.0 (MDD), and an Expert Group Meeting on cyber-scam operations in South East Asia. Both were held in Bangkok, with the first taking place 6-7 November and the second taking place 8 November.
We worked closely with the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and The Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ) to deliver a two day multistakeholder event. ?The MDD proved to be a great platform to discuss some of the most pressing organized crime-related topics of the region. But it wasn’t only discussions; by bringing together stakeholders from different geographies and sectors, attendees were able to formulate potential solutions and learn from one another’s experiences. Panel topics included general criminal trends, gender and inclusion, local resilience, and regional cooperation, to name just a few.
Co-organized with ASEAN–Australia Counter Trafficking (ASEAN-ACT) and the Bali Process Regional Support Office (RSO), the Expert Group Meeting on Friday 8 November aimed to align, strengthen and innovate responses to cyber scam operations. Not least because of the industrial scale of the phenomenon, its global impact and staggering amounts of money lost annually, participants discussed how to create and drive forward a holistic whole-of-society response. Attendees heard from and interacted with local officials, private sector groups, CSOs and academics. Breakout sessions allowed for frank and fruitful discussions on what is now needed in order to better address this rapidly escalating form of criminality.
Voices from the Region
Oceania features a collection of islands with diverse forms of state and territorial governance. The different denominations are reflective of the varying degrees of closeness maintained between these entities and their former colonial powers.
GI-TOC’s Global Organized Crime Index, which sets the evidence base and framework for most of our work, is produced for all UN Country members. ?In practical terms, this means that there will be legal entities and territories that fall outside of the Index’s remit - yet they are not immune from transnational organized crime.?
This is apparent in the case of Cook Islands, a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand which is impacted by environmental crime as well as by the movements of organized criminal gang members across the region. To shed light on these criminal risks as well as on the measures undertaken at the national and community levels to build resilience to criminal markets and actors, we have invited our GIN member Dr Henrietta McNeill from the Australian National University to contribute to our blog series. You can read her piece, Unchartered waters - How the Cook Islands is responding to transnational organized crime, here.
We are also pleased to announce Dr. Henrietta M. is the recipient of the 2024 IASOC Annual Prize for Best Ph.D. Thesis / Dissertation for her doctoral thesis titled “Offshore Currents: Examining Securitisation and De-securitisation of Criminal Deportations to Tonga, Samoa, and Cook Islands” - many congratulations Henrietta!
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The GI-TOC on the Pacific
Head of Pacific Programme Virginia Comolli took part in a Georgetown University panel on China and Transnational Crime: Fentanyl and Beyond (recording available here). Whereas the prime focus of the discussion was on US-China coordination on global counternarcotics efforts, the webinar also provided the opportunity to discuss the involvement of Chinese entities in transnational criminal activities in places such as the Pacific and implications for responses.
Meet our GIN members
This month we are excited to introduce Dr Danielle Watson , who is an Associate Professor and Academic Lead - Research at the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia. She is also an Affiliate of the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI) and an Adjunct Professor at the University of the South Pacific. Danielle’s research focuses on (in)security in Pacific Island Countries, capacity building for security service providers, recruitment and training as well as many other areas specific to improving security governance in developing country contexts. Danielle supports the development of security scholarships in small island developing states in the Global South. She leads the Indo-Pacific and the Small Islands Security Governance Research Groups at QUT. At present, she holds an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award to work on a project titled ‘Beyond Imported Understandings of Domestic Violence in the Pacific’ and she is the principal researcher on three additional ongoing projects: “Reimagining insecurity in Pacific Island States”, “Policing Pacific Island Communities” and “Indigenising Discourses on Access to Justice in the Pacific”. She is also the lead author of Policing in the Pacific Island (2023, Palgrave) and Police and the Policed (2018, Palgrave), and a co-editor of Policing the Global South (2022, Routledge) and Mapping Security in the Pacific (2020, Routledge). In addition to maintaining an active research profile with over 60 publications, Danielle is heavily involved in engagement and outreach across the Pacific. She has supported seven Pacific Island Countries to develop their border strategies and currently supports the delivery of workshops on Transnational Organised Crime for Pacific security stakeholders.
What’s Next for the APA team?
On 29 November we will be hosting a virtual Resilience Dialogue for Oceania. Together with our Resilience Fund colleagues, we are keen to deepen our engagement with civil society organizations across the region and to create an opportunity to connect, share challenges and insights which are integral to building community resilience against localised impact of transnational organized crime.
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Until next month,
Senior Analysts,?GI-TOC Civil Society Observatory of Illicit Economies in Asia-Pacific