Completed
Brazzaville, Republic of Congo · 11–15 April 2023
Brazzaville, April 2023
The Congo Basin holds the second-largest tropical rainforest on earth, and a border that wildlife and timber trafficking networks cross far more easily than the agencies pursuing them. The Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo share that forest, and much of the same illegal trade.
In April 2023 ATI convened enforcement officers from both countries in Brazzaville for a five-day multi-agency capacity-building workshop, delivered with the Lusaka Agreement Task Force. The workshop was opened by Hon. Dr. Rosalie Matondo, the Republic of Congo's Minister for Forest Economy.
It was built around a problem that no single agency owns: wildlife crime that begins in a protected area, moves through customs and financial systems, and ends in a courtroom that may or may not be equipped to prosecute it.
Enforcement stops at borders. Trafficking does not. Bringing officers from the Republic of Congo and the DR Congo into the same room addresses the gap directly. The point at which a case crosses a boundary is exactly where it is most often lost.
Heads of delegation from each country presented the field challenges they encounter in wildlife law enforcement, so the week began from what is actually going wrong rather than from a curriculum.
Gallery
ATI holds no cleared photographs of this workshop. Rather than illustrate it with images from another programme, this page describes it in text only.
The workshop was convened with the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, the intergovernmental body established under the Lusaka Agreement on Cooperative Enforcement Operations Directed at Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora, alongside Grace Farms Foundation and the University of Washington.
Closing remarks and certificates were delivered jointly by the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, the Congo National Bureau to the Lusaka Agreement, and Grace Farms Foundation.
A seven-course training series under the UNDP/GEF project of the same name: four courses on financial investigation and asset recovery, then three controlled delivery practical exercises. Convened with the Lusaka Agreement Task Force for officers from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and, at the final course, Cambodia.
Twenty-eight enforcement, prosecution and revenue officers from Malawi, mainland Tanzania, Zanzibar and Zambia convened for practical training in investigative technique, evidence handling and port security inspection, working in four groups on a live case exercise.
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