The Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Yury Fedotov, participated in the OSCE Mediterranean Conference, held in Palermo on 24 and 25 October 2017. The Conference, titled “Large Movements of Migrants and Refugees in the Mediterranean: Challenges and Opportunities”, promoted a high-level political exchange of views on the issue of migration flows in the Mediterranean and on the related challenges and opportunities.
On the margins of the Conference, on 23 October, the Italian Minister of Foreing Affairs and International Cooperation, Angelino Alfano, and Director Fedotov signed an Arrangement by which Italy grants UNODC a contribution of 2.7 million euros for the implementation of two projects to combat human trafficking and migrant smuggling.
The Italian contribution will be paid from the “Fund for Africa” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and it will finance in the first place the Project “Strengthening the transnational response to smuggling of migrants and maritime crime in West, North and East Africa”, aimed at strengthening the judicial cooperation with the countries of origin and of transit of irregular flows in the Mediterranean, through training and legal assistance activities, within the framework of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
Another part of the contribution will be used to support the Project “Global Action against Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (GLO.ACT)” in Mali and Niger, within the larger scope of an initiative implemented by UNODC and the European Union in collaboration with IOM and UNICEF aimed at providing technical assistance to help governmental institutions and civil society organizations in 13 countries fight human trafficking
and migrant smuggling.
In his statement at the high-level political segment of the Mediterranean Conference, Director Fedotov declared that UNODC’s new
strategy, supported by Italy also through the signature of the above mentioned Arrangement, will help reinforce the international response to migrant trafficking in Africa. He also recalled that UNODC’s efforts are based on important international instruments, among which in particular the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, signed in Palermo in 2000.
