Promoting South-South Cooperation in the generation of crime and criminal justice statistics

From April 23 to 26, the Center of Excellence for Statistical Information on Government, Crime, Victimization and Justice (CoE) participated in the Meeting of the Specialized Technical Group (STG) on Governance, Peace and Security (GPS) carried out in the city of Tunis, Tunisia.

The meeting was organized by the African Union Commission (AUC) with the support of the Pan African Statistics Program (PAS). 20 African countries and 13 institutions working in the continent participated in the Meeting.

The objective of the CoE’s participation was to present the experience of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in supporting countries to collect data on governance, crime and criminal justice.

Specifically, the Latin America and the Caribbean Crime Victimization Survey Initiative (LACSI Initiative) was presented as a good practice in the Region: a standardized questionnaire that measures the perception of insecurity, the dark figure of crime and victimization. UNODC, through the CoE, supports the countries of the region throughout the entire implementation process of the LACSI Initiative. Currently, 6 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have victimization surveys aligned with the LACSI Initiative and 3 are implementing it.

The Initiative is in line with international standards and allows the generation of information for the reporting of 4 indicators of the Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions of the UN 2030 Agenda.

The participation of the CoE in this important meeting is an expression of the interest of UNODC in promoting South-South cooperation to fostering the development of crime and criminal justice statistics in Member Countries.