INTERPOL Wildlife Crime Working Group Meeting
UNU-IAS and Lusaka Agreement to present WEMS-Africa at the 23rd INTERPOL Wildlife Crime Working Group Meeting
Date: 13-17 February 2012
Venue: Hotel Dusit Thanee, Bangkok, Thailand
Presenters:
Mr. Karl Karugaba (Intelligence Officer, Lusaka Agreement Task Force, Nairobi, Kenya)
Mr. Remi Chandran (PhD Researcher, ITC-University of Twente, Netherlands & Visiting Research Fellow (UNU-IAS, Yokohama, Japan)
Abstract:
On 18th July 2011, Dr. Noah Wekesa, the Minister for Forestry and Wildlife of Kenya officially launched the Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System (WEMS) in Africa to enable coordinated information sharing between the member states of the Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF). This was also for the first time East African wildlife enforcement units were connected digitally and across national borders through a common information sharing platform. This joint presentation from the project partners will cover the various aspects which lead to the success of the implementation process and will touch upon important steps taken in governance of such a system which enables law enforcement agencies to come together.
In the first part of the presentation, Mr. Mr. Karl Karugaba of Lusaka Agreement will introduce the important policy steps taken to bridge African countries together through WEMS-Africa. This will be followed by a briefing by Remi Chandran on the various models on governance tested to find the best mechanism for sharing information between countries. Here the integration of ICT requirements into the various governance paradigms will also be explained. The importance of research using wildlife crime data generated through WEMS Africa will also be highlighted and will demonstrate how it aids our understanding on the driving factors that influence illegal trade. The presentation will conclude with a short demonstration of WEMS-Africa.