Illegal Drug Trade in Africa: Trends and U.S. Policy
Released: 2010-02-26T00:00:00

Introduction: The Rising Drug Trafficking Threat

A rise in illicit drug trafficking in Africa in recent years has drawn the attention of U.S. policy makers. The 110 th Congress, for instance, passed P.L. 110-417 , requiring the Department of Defense (DOD) to author a report to Congress laying out a counternarcotics strategy for the region, among other related goals. The issue has also arisen in the 111 th Congress. On June 23, 2009, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) held a hearing entitled Confronting Drug Trafficking in West Africa , and other recent hearings, such as a late 2009 SFRC hearing on U.S. counterterrorism activities in Africa's Sahel region, have also referenced this issue. President Barack Obama has also highlighted the challenge posed by drug trafficking in Africa, which he has stated "threatens stability" throughout West Africa.

Africans have been involved in the global illicit drug trade for several decades, both in Africa and elsewhere, but as a region, sub-Saharan Africa played a generally peripheral role in large-scale global drug trafficking prior to the mid-2000s. This was due, in part, to its geographic distance from traditional key centers of non-cannabis illicit drug production and consumption and from primary transit routes between them. While commercially significant amounts of some drugs, particularly heroin, reportedly transited the region in the 1980s and 1990s, the amounts trafficked were generally much smaller than those in most other global regions. With the exception of cannabis, local drug demand and supply incentives also remained low by global standards for several reasons. These included a relative lack of purchasing power as a result of low average household incomes across much of sub-Saharan Africa ("Africa" hereafter, except where otherwise noted), along with widespread cultural unfamiliarity with and exposure to the main non-cannabis, illicit narcotics common in other parts of the world.

Africa's historically relative peripheral status vis-à-vis the global trade in non-cannabis illicit narcotic drugs appears, however, to be ending. Hotspots of illegal drug activity have emerged in West Africa and East Africa, as well as in Southern Africa. Diverse signs of drug trafficking activity in West Africa during the past five years indicate that this sub-region is emerging as a key warehousing and transshipment hub for large-scale consignments of South American cocaine being smuggled en route to Europe. In recent years—albeit not in late 2008 or 2009, an anomaly discussed below—the region has witnessed a sharp rise in record-sized multi-ton cocaine seizures and a rise in reported cocaine criminal cases involving diverse foreign and African individuals, including African state officials and Latin American drug syndicate members.

According to analyses by government and multilateral agencies, Kenya and Ethiopia are notable transshipment hubs for heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan. East Africa is the primary smuggling conduit for moving heroin from Southwest Asia to Africa for further transshipment around the globe, according to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). South Africa has become a source and transshipment point for synthetic drugs, like methamphetamine and other amphetamine-type drugs, for both domestic consumption and foreign destinations in Europe and South Asia. There are also reports that multiple countries in Africa are being used as hubs for the illicit diversion of chemical precursors used to manufacture illegal drugs. According to the INCB, Africa "has emerged as a major area" for the diversion to the Americas and elsewhere of the key methamphetamine precursor chemicals ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.

Local drug consumption trends are generally not well documented because of a paucity of data on illicit drug usage rates. Cannabis use rates in Africa, however, are reportedly among the highest worldwide, while available data indicate that use of other drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and amphetamines, is generally below the use rates of other world regions but is growing in some African countries.

Recent Developments

On December 18, 2009, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced the extradition from Ghana and arrest of three West Africans on narco-terrorism charges. The indictees allegedly agreed to transport cocaine for the Colombian drug trafficking and terrorist organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), from West Africa to Europe with the assistance and protection of regional affiliates of the Al Qaeda terrorist group. These arrests and other reports and congressional testimony suggest that there may be collaboration between drug traffickers and terrorist organizations in the region, as well as linkages between drug smuggling and other types of illicit trafficking and criminal activities. (See " Potential Links Between Drug Trafficking and Terrorist Groups ," below.)

On December 8, 2009, the U.N. Security Council held a special session on drug trafficking as a threat to international peace and security with a focus on Africa. The meeting focused on the "numerous security risks caused by drug trafficking ... in Africa," among other world regions, including "serious threats posed" by linkages between transnational organized crime and the "increasing link, in some cases, between drug trafficking and the financing of terrorism." (See " Multilateral and Regional Efforts to Combat Drug Trafficking in Africa ," below.)

In 2009, U.S. government agencies continued to formulate and refine Africa-specific counternarcotics programs and assistance plans. Notable in this regard was the completion of several interagency country assessments, which are used to evaluate needs and program counternarcotics assistance for countries and regions in Africa. In addition, in September 2009, the Department of Defense produced a congressionally mandated counternarcotics strategy for the region. Notwithstanding such efforts, P.L. 111-117 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010) did not explicitly allocate funds for Africa-specific counternarcotics efforts, as it did for some other countries and regions, although the bill does fund a variety of global programs that are likely to support such ends in Africa. (See " U.S. Policy ," below.)

There was a decline in reported cocaine seizures in West Africa in the latter half of 2008 and in 2009, following a rapid rise in such seizures in recent prior years. The decline in such reports has spurred analysts to debate whether there has been a corresponding actual decline in volumes of trafficked through the region, and if so what its duration may be―or whether there was no such decline and whether other factors, such as changes in trafficking patterns or a lack of law enforcement intelligence or capacities, may explain the dearth of reported seizures. The discovery in Mali in November 2009 of a wrecked Boeing 727 believed to have been used to transport cocaine, along with other reports indicating the increased use of air-based methods to traffic cocaine in the region, suggests that smuggling methods may have changed, but that volumes at issue may not be declining. (See coverage of cocaine in " Drug Trafficking Trends in Africa " section, below.)

Some reports in 2009 suggested that traffickers may be seeking to transform Africa into a drug-processing and production hub where unrefined illegal base drugs may be converted into finished products, although there is reason to believe that such efforts are embryonic. (See " Implications for U.S. Interests ", below, and coverage of heroin and synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals in " Drug Trafficking Trends in Africa ," below.)

Implications for U.S. Interests

Historically, U.S. and international policy makers directed relatively little attention to counternarcotics issues in Africa, largely because the potential consequences for the United States and other non-African countries arising from drug trafficking in the region were typically viewed as limited. The perception that such activity may indeed threaten U.S. and other international interests has grown, however, as Africa's role in global trafficking has expanded. Some U.S. observers now argue that the rise in drug trafficking in Africa has been so rapid and large—an indication that international drug trafficking patterns are in flux—that it must now be given heightened consideration within the context of global U.S. counternarcotics goals and strategies. The extent of this rise also suggests that such activities have the potential to threaten diverse U.S. security, foreign policy, and economic interests within Africa.

Confluence of Transnational Drug Syndicates and Other Security Threats

The growth of drug trafficking through Africa poses new challenges to international counternarcotics efforts, as well as a variety of emergent threats to the United States. These trends suggest that novel strategies or adaptations of existing ones may be required to track emergent drug flow patterns, dismantle major criminal syndicates involved in such trafficking, and prevent future hotspots from emerging. Many observers have raised concerns about potentially growing operational linkages between Latin American, West African, and Southwest Asian drug syndicates and European criminal elements. The increased trade suggests that such organizations are growing in capacity, strength, and global reach. There are signs that Latin American trafficking syndicates have expanded into the region. Several Latin American individuals from countries such as Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Mexico, some with known or suspected ties to cocaine syndicates, have been arrested in cocaine cases in West Africa in recent years. DEA also reports that since 2007, "DEA has identified at least nine top-tier South American and Mexican DTOs [drug trafficking organizations] that have established operations in Africa." Numerous Latin American persons, some suspected of having drug links, have reportedly established residences and businesses in Africa, particularly in West Africa.

Many of the same transnational Latin American drug trafficking organizations that supply U.S. drug markets and engage in other, often violent, crimes targeting U.S. citizens, interests, or jurisdictions are believed to be playing a key role in the rapid growth of drug trafficking in Africa. In this respect, the threat to U.S. interests posed by this trend is direct, because these actors' expansion into Africa increases their global reach and provides them additional profits and organizational linkages, making them more financially and operationally diversified, robust, and versatile—and thus more difficult to track and halt. For West African criminal groups, growing involvement with Latin American cocaine traffickers signifies their expansion beyond heroin trafficking, their traditional niche in the drug trade.

Potential Links Between Drug Trafficking and Terrorist Groups

Drug trafficking in Africa may also facilitate collaboration or other synergies between drug trafficking organizations and the activities or interests of other entities that are adversarial to U.S. interests. These may include non-drug-related transnational organized crime networks and, potentially, U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, including the leftist rebel group from Colombia, the FARC, and Hezbollah. Both of these groups are reportedly involved in drug trafficking and money laundering in regions other than Africa, and Hezbollah supporters are reportedly common among West Africa's Lebanese commercial diaspora. These or similar entities, potentially including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), could earn money directly from participation in the African drug trade. Such entities could also derive indirect benefits from the African drug trade (e.g., sources of financing for non-drug operations, increased international ties with other illicit actors, or access to barter deals involving drugs and other illicit goods, such as black market arms).

The strongest known link between drug trafficking and international terrorist groups in West Africa involves the FARC, which has been linked to cocaine trafficking into Venezuela, from where much of the cocaine now transiting West Africa is believed to be exported. Hezbollah, which reportedly has financial and business ties and a network of supporters in West Africa and in Europe, among other world regions, has been linked to cocaine traffic originating in or transiting Venezuela, as well as in other countries, including the United States. Although there are no substantiated public reports of Hezbollah involvement in trans-African cocaine traffic originating in Venezuela, given the group's reported involvement in cocaine trafficking in other countries and its links in Africa, some analysts believe that Hezbollah may be involved in Africa-related trafficking trade, particularly with regard to the laundering of trafficking earnings between Europe and Africa. Some analysts believe that a portion of earnings from the trade are laundered through a process in which cash earnings are illicitly exported to African countries, where the funds are then legally wired to banks in the Middle East in which Hezbollah may play a role. Little known evidence, however, indicates that either Hezbollah or AQIM are playing a significant role in drug flows through the region—with the possible exception of hashish in the case of AQIM.

In late December 2009, the DEA announced the extradition from Ghana and arrest of three West African individuals on narco-terrorism charges. The indictees, reportedly self-described associates of Al Qaeda, allegedly agreed to transport cocaine for purported representatives of the Colombian drug trafficking and terrorist organization, the FARC, from Mali through North Africa into Spain with the assistance and protection of Al Qaeda. A key charge in the indictment is the allegation that the indictees' actions would have provided pecuniary benefits to Al Qaeda and AQIM, which, like the FARC, are designated as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) by the State Department. The indictment is believed to be the first publicly known use of 21 U.S.C. 960a to prosecute crimes related to drug trafficking in support of terrorism alleged to have been committed in sub-Saharan Africa. It also marks the first prosecution of associates of Al Qaeda for narco-terrorism offenses.

These arrests reinforce claims that drug traffickers and terrorist organizations in the region may collaborate. In the absence of verifiable proof, some have suggested that a burnt Boeing 727 discovered in Mali (see below) may have had links to Islamic militants or Tuareg rebels known to have operated in the region of Mali where the airplane was found. Firm evidence documenting a verifiable drug-terrorism linkage in West Africa has not been documented in detail in publicly available sources. However, UNODC's Costa stated in February 2010 that "there is more than just spotty evidence" of drug trafficker-terrorist links, and multiple media articles have outlined the possible dynamics of and rationales for the existence of such relationships. Costa also stated that there is "plenty of evidence" to suggest that cocaine is being exchanged for arms in the region. Similar assertions have been made in other forums; according to UNODC and other analyses, the drug-for-arms trade may be just one of several secondary or derivative illicit economies growing in the region, including trafficking in persons. In at least one case that may illustrate such linkages, a local Malian ethnic Arab leader who has allegedly played a role in negotiations for hostages held by AQIM in late 2009 and 2010 is reportedly linked to the alleged air-based delivery of a large shipment of cocaine in central Mali in 2010.

Potential for Narco-Violence?

Some analysts warn that the rise in drug trafficking in Africa could prompt a rise in criminal violence in the region. African authorities have seized small arms from Latin American cocaine trafficking suspects in several West African cocaine cases, and several drug trade-related shoot-outs and murders in the region are known to have occurred in recent years. With a few notable exceptions, however, to date there has been no marked or widespread rise in drug-linked criminal violence in Africa. While analysts may debate whether there is a potential for the growth of drug-related violence in Africa, other countries' experiences, most notably Mexico today, highlight the potential danger of drug-related violence.

One of the most recent violent, possibly drug-related incidents involved the assassination of Guinea-Bissau's armed forces chief, Batista Tagme Na Wai, on March 1, 2009, which was followed within hours by a reportedly retaliatory murder of the country's president, Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira. No publicly available evidence suggests that drug trafficking organizations were behind the assassinations, and there are strong indications that political factors may have played a role in the deaths. Both men were party to Guinea-Bissau's 1998 civil war, and the two men were reportedly bitter political rivals. Some reports suggest, however, that the remote-controlled bomb that was used to assassinate Na Wai could imply a drug link in his death. Such devices are reportedly rarely used in the region but are frequently used by Mexican and Colombian drug trafficking organizations. Both men had taken public stances against drug trafficking, but both were also reportedly believed by diplomatic sources, international organization representatives, and some analysts to have had links to the drug trade.

A New Drug Production Zone?

A possible nascent shift in drug trafficking tactics in the region involves reported efforts to transform West Africa into a drug processing and production hub where unrefined illegal base drugs may be converted into finished products. For some years, synthetic drugs have been produced for local and regional consumption in South Africa, as well as other countries in Southern and East Africa. South African authorities report to the United Nations that they dismantle approximately 30 synthetic drug labs annually. In July 2009, Guinean officials discovered in at least two locations large quantities of precursor chemicals and solvents known to be used in the processing of cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy, along with specialized equipment used in the manufacture of these drugs, suggesting the presence of clandestine drug processing laboratories on West African soil. These discoveries—and in particular the implication that ecstasy is being manufactured in West Africa, which would constitute a novel development—possibly suggest that the drug trade is being further entrenched in the region. The international community views the July 2009 discovery as a cause for concern, with the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in February 2010 calling for greater awareness of the risk that African countries may be used for illegal drug production. However, there have been few similar reports, suggesting that such developments are embryonic at most.

Other Threats to U.S. Foreign Policy Goals

Growing transnational drug trafficking in Africa may directly jeopardize other U.S. foreign and economic policy goals in Africa, such as the promotion of legitimate economic growth, state institution-building, and diverse other foreign aid program goals. It could also put at risk large amounts of peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction assistance that the United States and other donors have invested in the region, notably in West Africa, in recent decades.

Corruption and Other Funding-Based Threats to Law Enforcement

An increase in drug trafficking could have a negative impact on levels of corruption among law enforcement, judicial, and military officials. Drug corruption poses a particular danger to African states since, due to their institutional and economic weaknesses, relatively small financial resources may be required to elicit high levels of corrupt behavior by officials and to vastly expand the challenges faced by already-challenged criminal justice systems (see text box below on "Regional Vulnerabilities.") Moreover, the high volumes and value of the drugs being moved through the region mean that large-scale traffickers have at their disposal financial resources that are significant in relation to low average incomes common in the region. There are indications that this threat is being realized—particularly at regional air and sea ports of entry, where high levels of corruption and low official pay facilitate the trafficking of illegal drugs. State officials have been implicated in a number of drug-related cases in multiple African countries. Similarly, the organizational and logistical assets that Latin American drug syndicates can potentially bring to bear in operations in Africa are extensive and sophisticated in comparison to those available to many law enforcement agencies in the region. Should trafficking through the region grow substantially, these assets could pose a substantial added challenge to governments' capacities to combat such activities.

Possible Economic Effects

There are some indications that the scale of the illicit narcotics trade may be growing so large as to rival the volume of legal trade in some sectors. UNODC has reported that the wholesale value of the cocaine transiting West Africa, for example, may be starting to rival that of a number of primary legal export commodities produced in the region. UNODC findings have also highlighted several economic trends that may be indicative of drug-related effects on economies in the region, including the unexplained doubling or tripling in annual remittances from Europe to several West African countries, and relatively sudden, substantial increases in foreign direct investments in several others.

If drug-related criminality in the region were to increase markedly, some analysts fear that legal foreign investment in the region—which is already low in many countries, due to a variety of factors—could be further deterred, potentially negatively affecting U.S. interests in the region. For example, State Department analysts suggest that such inhibitions on investment could potentially negatively affect U.S. energy security interests in the region by affecting U.S. oil sector investments. On the other hand, it remains unclear how much of a marginal increase drug-related inhibitions on investment, including investment in the energy sector, might add to a substantial existing level of foreign business reticence to invest in Africa. Large energy firms have long routinely operated in very challenging business climates, remote and harsh environmental contexts, and in countries that are affected by high levels of corruption or political instability.

Possible Governance Impacts

Corruption and the economic value of inflows of drug-related hard currency funds into Africa's relatively small economies hold the potential to undermine the political will to strongly back substantive and effective counter-narcotics efforts, and could pose a range of broader governance threats. These include the potential undermining of civil and constitutional liberties, notably freedom of the press, and limitations on citizens' franchise powers to suit the interests of corrupt officials. In the extreme, in cases in which the operational influence of drug trafficking networks significantly penetrates key institutions, such as the military, the sovereignty or viability of states as independent rule of law-based entities may be jeopardized. Such concerns have been repeatedly raised by many analysts with regard to Guinea-Bissau, as well as Guinea, albeit to a lesser extent, during the final years in power of the late President Conte.

Drug Trafficking Trends in Africa

Trafficking: Overview

Although long considered a relatively minor global source, destination, and transit point for illegal drugs, Africa's role in global illicit drug trade has grown in recent years (see Table 1 for drug seizure levels in 2006, the most recent year for which Africa-wide data were available). Most prominent among recent drug trafficking trends in Africa is the record number of multi-ton seizures of cocaine in West Africa. Between 2005 and 2008, West African, European, and U.S. officials have seized at least 46 metric tons of cocaine bound for Europe via West Africa. This represents a significant rise over impoundment levels in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when total drug seizures rarely exceeded more than 1 metric ton per year for the entire continent. Although the region has long been a transit point for small consignments of cocaine destined for Europe, the volume and frequency of cocaine seizures in recent years appears to indicate emerging changes in methods used for trafficking of cocaine, the mix of criminal actors involved, and in patterns of global cocaine movement and consumption. How durable such changes may prove, however, is unclear.

While a wide variety of factors may explain the relatively sudden rise of cocaine trafficking through West Africa, a number of structural and institutional characteristics common to many African countries may make the region as a whole susceptible to trafficking of various illicit substances. These are discussed in the following text box.

Cocaine

Sources and Destinations

As with practically all illegal cocaine, that which transits West Africa originates in South America, where it is processed in Colombia and Peru using coca leaves grown in the same countries. In 2007, Colombian authorities estimated that approximately 35% of cocaine produced and shipped from the coasts of Colombia, Venezuela, the Guyanas, and Brazil is trafficked via West Africa to Europe. During the same time period, U.S. and international authorities estimated that approximately 80% of cocaine traveling from Latin America to Africa moved by sea and the remaining 20% by air. In recent years, the proportion of Latin American cocaine moving through West Africa en route to Europe has increased.

UNODC reports that seizures in Africa increased from under 1 metric ton per year in the 1998-2002 period to 15 metric tons in 2006, and that during the three years from 2005 through 2007, officials seized at least 33 metric tons of cocaine bound for Europe via West Africa. There has been a corresponding increase in other drug trafficking indicators: in 2006, 34% and 30% of cocaine seized at European airports came from the Caribbean and Latin America, respectively, and 24% came from Africa. In 2007, European cocaine seizures that transited through Africa had jumped to 46% of the total, while those trafficked directly from Latin America provenance increased only slightly, to 33%, and those from the Caribbean dropped to 12%. In global terms, African cocaine seizures increased from 0.1% of total global seizures in 2000 to 0.3% in 2005 to 2.1% in 2006 Table 2 . While this rise may suggest that cocaine trafficking through Africa remains peripheral in global terms, the proportional rate of growth of this increase has been abrupt, as has its potential impact on European and African drug supply and use trends.

Volume

The actual amount of cocaine transiting Africa en route to Europe is not known; estimates of both the total amount of annual European cocaine consumption and the amount being trafficked through Africa vary significantly. Based on reported drug usage levels in Europe and extrapolations based on drug seizure data, various U.S., European, and international agency estimates suggest that between 46 tons and as much as 300 metric tons of cocaine consumed in Europe may transit West Africa annually. Estimates of the value of this trade, and the possible amount of profit that it may generate for traffickers, also vary widely. One UNODC study estimated that in 2006, about 40 tons of cocaine worth $1.8 billion—just over 27% of total European cocaine consumption of 146 tons in that year—passed through Africa. Wholesale profits on this 40 ton amount are estimated at $450 million, or 25% of the value; these profits may have been significantly higher if some of this amount was retailed. Potential earnings may also be far higher given that some estimates of the total amount of cocaine entering Europe are significantly higher than the 146 tons used by UNODC to compile this estimate.

In contrast to reported sharp rises in the volume of cocaine trafficked through West Africa during much of the past decade, in the latter half of 2008 and in 2009, there were few reports of major cocaine seizures in West Africa. Seizures at European airports on flights originating in West Africa also reportedly declined markedly.

Geography of Trafficking

Traditionally, cocaine destined for Europe followed a northerly route from South America, through the eastern Caribbean and the Azores, to landing points on the Iberian peninsula and the Netherlands. Interdiction pressures and other factors appear to have prompted a southward shift in routing, generating the rise in cocaine trafficking to Europe through West Africa. Large consignments of cocaine are now transported from Colombia and onward to Brazil, Venezuela, and some smaller destinations, from where they are dispatched to Africa, primarily West Africa.

For much of the past decade, the largest known loads of cocaine en route to Europe via West Africa are believed to have been transported by boat (including fishing boats, sailing yachts, and speedboats) and on container ships and other so-called mother ships that hand off shipments to smaller, faster boats outside territorial waters. Small private airplanes have also commonly been used. The bulk of cocaine shipments were believed to arrive in Cape Verde and in countries along the West African coast, ranging from Mauritania southward along the West African Atlantic coast as far west as Nigeria. Key regional entry points have included Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana, among others. Some shipments are also offloaded in Southern Africa, primarily South Africa, which is a destination for small quantities of cocaine as well as a transit point. Major European entry points for cocaine transiting through West Africa include Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and Italy.

While more circuitous than direct routes between South America and Europe, the southern trans-Atlantic oceanic distance between South America and Africa is geographically shorter and thus more secure for trafficking purposes than that between South America and Europe. These southern routes are also located south of the Atlantic zone where U.S. and European maritime shipping monitoring and drug interdiction efforts have historically been most intense. In recent years, the southern routes through Africa have been reportedly characterized by denser traffic and larger average cocaine cargo sizes than the northern ones, as indicated by a growing number of large seizures, including a number of multi-ton consignments. During the past decade, smuggling roughly along Latitude 10̊ North between northern South America and the West African coast (specifically between Venezuela and Guinea and adjacent Guinea-Bissau), became so common that law enforcement agencies dubbed it "Highway 10." Another major southern route appeared to link northern Latin American source countries with Gulf of Guinea countries from Ghana to Nigeria. There was also an increase in smuggling through some landlocked Sahelian countries that lie along routes connecting coastal West Africa to northern Africa via the Sahel, such as Mali.

Analysts are debating whether the decline in reported seizures noted above indicates an absolute decline in trafficking through the region and, if so, whether such a decline is a short-term or long-term phenomenon, or whether the absence of such reports can be explained by other factors. One set of conjectures centers around the possibility that the decline in reported seizures is the result of an actual decline in volumes trafficked through the region, potentially due to increasing counterdrug efforts in the region or other factors. An alternative explanation is that the decline may be attributable to a lack of data, law enforcement intelligence, or interdiction successes, possibly underpinned by drug traffickers' successful use of tactical trafficking innovations to evade detection. There is some information to suggest that the latter may be true, given an apparent emergent shift of smuggling operations toward the Sahel and in light of assertions by many analysts that many prior large seizures in the region were a result of serendipity or foreign law enforcement assistance, rather than systemic, endogenously run police operations in the region.

There is no firm evidence to suggest that the coastal West African country routes that have been prominent over the past decade have been abandoned. There are, however, some signs that the Sahel may be emerging as an increasingly important locus of trafficking, due to a potentially developing trend in which transnational traffickers active in West Africa may be increasing their use of air transport, possibly by employing much larger, longer-range aircraft than those used in prior years. According to news articles and the United Nations (U.N.) Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), traffickers transporting cocaine across the Atlantic Ocean from South America to West Africa are increasingly employing irregular private flights to do so, using aircraft ranging in size from twin engine turboprops to executive jets to Boeing 727s. At least 10 such aircraft have been linked to such smuggling through the region since 2006. Similar types of aircraft, including Boeing 727s, have been used by Latin American drug traffickers to transport narcotics shipments from South America through the Caribbean-Central American transit zone en route to the United States since at least the early 1990s.

A further indication of such a trend was the discovery, in November 2009, of an abandoned, burnt-out wreckage of a Boeing 727 in northeastern Mali, which the UNODC reports was used to carry cocaine. In a similar, but little reported case, a Panamanian-flagged aircraft crewed by "South American" nationals that carried "250 large drums of cocaine" reportedly landed in central Mali in January 2010.

The considerable size and range of the wrecked 727 and the location of its discovery in the Sahel, if indicative of a new trend, may help explain the decrease in reported West African cocaine seizures in 2008 and 2009 (see " Volume ," above). Use of a 727 aircraft, reportedly one of several being used, according to the UNODC, would allow much larger air-based drug shipments to be transported much longer distances than in the past, enabling traffickers to drop payloads at delivery sites in the remote, sparsely populated, often unpatrolled Sahel belt. Such a strategy would obviate the need to land in or further transport the drugs through the more densely populated and relatively more policed West African coastal countries, and would place drug shipments in a location geographically nearer to end-destinations in Europe. As a result, it would reduce the number of onward transport contingencies faced by traffickers and lower the associated risk of surveillance and interdiction per unit of cocaine smuggled. Concomitantly, it would likely reduce the number of drug seizure reports in the region, since the locus of smuggling would shift to fewer countries and more remote, unsurveilled zones.

Trafficking Patterns and Actors

Limited data on cocaine trafficking into and within Africa are available, but many indications suggest that the bulk of cocaine is trafficked into West Africa, as opposed to other sub-regions on the continent. This pattern may be explained by geographic factors and changes in trafficking patterns spurred by developments outside of Africa, but it may also be rooted in the preexisting role of West Africans in the international narcotics trade. As early as the 1970s, reports indicate West Africans of multiple nationalities were significantly involved in international heroin and cocaine trafficking. In 2000, the U.S. government International Crime Threat Assessment report stated that Nigerian criminal syndicates dominated "transatlantic cocaine shipments between Brazil and Africa" and were "increasingly trafficking South American cocaine to various regions in Africa and throughout Europe." The report stated that Nigerian traffickers primarily transshipped cocaine using drug couriers traveling via commercial air flights.

As the size of the cocaine shipments has grown in recent years, the actors involved in its trans-Atlantic transport appear to have changed. Much of the recent large-scale trafficking from South America to West Africa appears to have been dominated by Latin Americans, in particular Colombians, and some Europeans. The rise in cocaine trafficking through West Africa in recent years had led some analysts to conclude that the increase might indicate a long-term shift in strategies by Latin American cocaine traffickers. However, the sharp drop in cocaine seizures in early 2009 suggests to others that such a conclusion might be premature or inaccurate. Despite such uncertainties, there are some indications that suspected Latin American traffickers have been establishing a long-term permanent presence in West Africa in recent years. A relatively recent small flow of apparently wealthy Latin Americans into West Africa has drawn attention in a number of countries in the sub-region. A number of these persons, who often claim to be investors in the local economy, have purchased or constructed elaborate villas and compounds, and often drive expensive vehicles. Another possible indicator that traffickers may be moving portions of the wholesale cocaine supply chain across the Atlantic is the discovery of cocaine processing labs that convert cocaine base into a finished product, cocaine hydrochloride (HCl). Several such labs have been recently found in Spain and Portugal.

Latin American traffickers are believed both to directly organize cocaine transport onward from West Africa to Europe and to collaborate with West African traffickers in other cocaine redistribution and export activities. According to UNODC, "[t]here appear to be two parallel flows. One, mainly involving large maritime and private air shipments, is owned and managed by South Americans," while West African crime groups, either in collaboration with nationals from other world regions or individually, "also traffic these drugs to Europe, usually via commercial air flights." West African traffickers are reportedly paid in kind with cocaine for their logistics services and buy wholesale consignments of cocaine from their South American counterparts. Some of these actors may, in turn, sell or consign cocaine to low-level, freelancing traffickers who are also involved in moving cocaine from West Africa to Europe. West Africans have also been associated with relatively smaller amounts of cocaine smuggled from South America to Africa.

Tracking the movement of cocaine from West Africa to Europe is challenging for law enforcement and intelligence agencies because of a lack of manpower, technological, and other resources. Some patterns have been identified, however. In general, drug syndicates, mainly from West Africa and, to a lesser extent, South America, move cocaine from West Africa to Europe using human couriers flying commercial air passenger routes. Parcel post, private air flights, trans-Sahel land and air routes, and boats are also employed. The trafficking of cocaine via commercial airlines is, in particular, believed to be well-established among West African drug syndicates. Recent UNODC drug seizure data suggest that two sub-regional repackaging and redistribution trafficking patterns have emerged. One involves cocaine entering Guinea Bissau that is then routed to Senegal, Guinea, Gambia, and Mali for onward transport to Europe, primarily by passenger air flights, but also by land. Cocaine entering the Gulf of Guinea, by contrast, reportedly often flows through Ghana into Togo, Benin, and Nigeria, and then onward to Europe, primarily by passenger air flight.

Surveillance efforts in Europe targeting commercial air flights regularly interdict numerous human couriers, known as mules, who either swallow their shipments (a procedure known as "body packing") or transport them on their persons or in their luggage. This mode of trafficking appears to use a so-called "shotgun" approach, in which numerous individual mules each carry amounts typically ranging from a few ounces to several kilograms. Jointly, they transport large quantities of cocaine, but traffickers face relatively low losses if some of the mules are apprehended. According to the UNODC, between 2004 and a portion of 2008, at least 1,357 couriers were detected on Europe-bound flights originating in West Africa, with each courier attempting to smuggle up to 4 kilograms of cocaine.

Heroin

Africa is not a global production source of illegal heroin and other opioids. Some limited opium poppy cultivation takes place in Algeria and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, but U.N. reports indicate that production is solely for regional consumption, primarily in Egypt. About 1.24 million Africans were estimated to have used heroin in 2008. This number, which accounted for about 11% of the global user population, was 54% higher than that reported in 2004. This rise, along with some other indicators, suggests that heroin use in Africa is growing steadily, notably in countries along key heroin trafficking routes (see Table 3 ).

Heroin trafficking through Africa and by African drug networks, however, is a relatively long-standing phenomenon, with one of the first reported instances of heroin trafficking occurring in Nigeria in the early 1980s. West African crime networks, in particular, have long played a key role in international heroin trafficking, both with respect to the procurement of wholesale heroin from producer countries and with regard to the wholesale and retail sale of heroin in consumer countries, including the United States. West African crime networks have long played a substantial role in the U.S. and European heroin markets. In 1994, Nigerian-controlled couriers accounted for 30% of all heroin seized by the U.S. Customs Service. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has reported that West Africans are continuing to play a primary role in transporting and distributing heroin in the United States.

Historically, West African networks have sourced heroin in Southeast Asia and trafficked it to consuming countries through networks mainly controlled from Nigeria and transnational operations based in various countries, particularly Southeast Asian ones, such as Thailand. In recent years, as Southwest Asian heroin has come to dominate the global market, West African heroin networks have become active in the trafficking of Southwest Asian heroin, particularly from Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to UNODC data, for example, at least 600 Nigerians have been arrested in Pakistan since 2000 in possession of more than 100 grams of heroin. According to the State Department, Nigerian and Ghanaian trafficking organizations are involved in smuggling heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan to several parts of the United States, including Ohio and the New York area.

Today, heroin is smuggled from Southwest Asia through East and West Africa into Europe and North America, usually by commercial air courier as well as sea routes. According to U.N. estimates, approximately 30 to 35 tons of Afghan heroin are trafficked through Africa, with approximately 25 tons consumed within Africa and 5 to 10 tons transiting through Africa en route to other final destinations. Approximately 20 tons of heroin are smuggled through today's primary route, from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Africa via both air and sea. Other major transit point for Afghan heroin en route to Africa include Iran (4 tons), India (3 tons), Persian Gulf states (5 tons), and South and Southeast Asian states (1 ton). For the 5 to 10 tons of heroin in transit through Africa, final destinations include the United States (3 tons), Europe (2 to 3 tons), and China (4 tons).

East Africa—which has long-standing trading links with South Asia, a global heroin source region, and the Middle East, a heroin transit zone that is today linked with these regions via multiple commercial airline routes and growing trade ties—is a particularly notable entry point for heroin shipments to the continent. Some evidence suggests that global flows of cocaine and heroin are crisscrossing through Africa, with cocaine originating in Latin America trafficked from West Africa to East Africa, and heroin originating in Southwest Asia trafficked from East Africa to West Africa. Annual reported seizure volumes and incident totals in Africa, however, are generally very limited compared with those in other world regions. In 2008, African countries reported to the United Nations heroin seizures totaling 0.3 tons (1% of global seizures).

Cannabis and Cannabis Resin

Cannabis has long been produced, trafficked, or used in practically every country in Africa—and analysts predict strong long-term increases in cannabis production in the region (see Table 4 and Table 5 ). The illegal cannabis drug market is by far the largest drug market in Africa; according to the UNODC, somewhere between 28.9 million and 56.4 million Africans used cannabis at least once in 2007. Like other world regions, cannabis production in Africa supplies a largely domestic or intra-regional population of users. In addition—and unlike most other world regions—the continent is the source of a significant cross-regional cannabis export market, mainly to West and Central Europe and to a lesser extent to East Asia and North America.

According to UNODC figures, Africa contributes between an estimated 22% and 26% of global cannabis production. Major producers include Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, and Zambia, along with Egypt and Morocco in North Africa. Compared to other regions, Africa is one of the largest annual sources of cannabis production and ranks among the top regions with respect to the number and volume of annual local cannabis seizures. While cannabis is known to be widely produced in Africa, and some cannabis-related production, distribution, retail value, and use trends can be discerned, detailed country-level data on these phenomena are often lacking.

While cannabis availability is widespread across the continent, views regarding the acceptability of its use vary considerably by country and among social groups. In some African countries, cannabis has long been widely used for diverse work-related, recreational, medicinal, cultural, and other purposes. In others, acceptance of its use differs among social or economic groups; for example, in many African countries, cannabis is primarily consumed by poor populations, notably in urban areas, and shunned by elites.

In many African countries, law enforcement efforts to counter the cannabis trade are sporadic, in part because often under-resourced police agencies face a range of more serious, violent crimes. In addition, according to the UNODC, while the drug is considered a problem from a public health perspective, it is often seen as less of a threat to national security than other types of drugs, such as cocaine and heroin. In general, illicit profits and incidents of drug-related violence associated with African cannabis trafficking are fewer than those associated with other drugs or criminal activities.

Cannabis resin, which is used in the production of hashish, is the second most widely trafficked drug in Africa, but is predominantly produced in North Africa (see Table 6 ). In addition to possessing the world's largest documented cannabis cultivation area, Morocco is the world's largest producer of cannabis resin. Unlike cannabis herb production, cannabis resin production is reportedly set for a gradual but global decline, due in large part to declining demand in Europe and various other factors.

One well-known smuggling route for both cannabis and cannabis resin to Europe is through Morocco. From Morocco, traffickers reportedly smuggle illegal cannabis into Spain, where it can be easily transshipped to other EU countries because of limited border security within the EU. Some of the same routes used for trafficking cannabis from Morocco to Europe are reportedly being used for transiting cocaine. EUROPOL has found that Colombian and Moroccan criminal groups are cooperating together to smuggle both cocaine and cannabis into Europe. Such trends may not last, however. Some analysts hypothesize that the co-mingling of cocaine and cannabis shipments and their transport along North African routes traditionally used for cannabis smuggling may decline because of concern by smugglers that the merger of cocaine and cannabis trafficking might draw increased law enforcement attention and increase the risk of interdiction. At the same time, however, reported drug seizures by the government of Niger indicate that North African smugglers are willing to go to considerable lengths to protect their routes. In one incident, for example, the Nigerien military encountered "considerable resistance" from a "professional" hashish smuggling operation that was trafficking the drug in convoys of three to five four-wheel drive vehicles secured with military-grade weaponry and satellite phones.

Synthetic Drugs and Precursor Chemicals

The illegal synthetic drug market in Africa is reportedly relatively small (see Table 7 and Table 8 ). One exception to this is South Africa, which is a destination and sometimes also a production source for methaqualone, methamphetamine, and MDMA (ecstasy); foreign production sources for these drugs include China, India, and Europe. Maxiton Forte, an amphetamine-type drug, is also reportedly produced in Egypt for domestic abuse. Despite limited data availability, reports indicate that the non-medical abuse of pharmaceutical preparations containing psychotropic substances occurs in West and Central Africa. Amphetamine users in Africa are estimated at 2.3 million, or approximately 9% of the world total, and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) predicts that the number of users in Africa will continue to increase gradually, in large part due to increasing South African demand for methamphetamine and crystal methamphetamine.

The INCB reports that Africa's significance as a transshipment point for the illicit diversion of precursor chemicals, particularly ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, used to manufacture illicit drugs, which had grown in the mid-2000s, may now be declining.. Ephedrine and pseudoephedrine are two key precursor chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine. Reports had indicated that more than 120 metric tons precursor chemicals for methamphetamine had been diverted to or through Africa in 2006. The countries in Africa to which these shipments were destined included Botswana, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. If the precursor chemicals had not been seized, they could have been converted into a total of approximately 80 metric tons of methamphetamine—a total that represents approximately one-third of current global methamphetamine production estimates. Since 2006, reported precursor seizures have been in decline; aggregate confiscations in the region totaled 75 tons in 2007 and 22 tons in 2008, and there were no reported seizures during the first nine months of 2009. The INCB reported in February 2010, however, that Africa may have emerged in 2009 as a target area for drug traffickers in search of acetic anhydride, a chemical used in the production of heroin as well as for numerous licit purposes.

The low level of commercial and pharmacological regulation and a frequent lack of trade monitoring and weak customs capacities in much of Africa compared to those in many other world regions have made the continent attractive as a transshipment hub for precursor chemicals used in illicit drug manufacture. Once in Africa, traffickers may be able to relatively easily divert such chemicals from the legal commerce into illicit trade. As a result, new precursor routes and re-shipment operations are expected to continue to emerge in Africa, given that many governments in the region lack the enforcement and forensic infrastructure to detect such trafficking.

In July 2009, Guinean authorities seized large quantities of solvents used to process cocaine and heroin, precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of MDMA (ecstasy), and equipment used in such production processes. A subsequent assessment by the UNODC and INTERPOL found that the "quantities and nature" of the chemicals found were "far in excess of the legitimate demands in Guinea." Their findings suggested that "the clandestine production of controlled drugs might be widespread in Guinea" and that the discoveries provide "the best evidence yet for clandestine [illicit drug] laboratory activity."

Illicit Drug Use Trends in Africa

U.N. data also suggest that regional consumption of heroin, cocaine, cannabis, and amphetamine-type drugs is increasing, likely as a side effect of the continent's growing prominence in the global drug trade (see Table 9 ). South Africa has long been the largest consumer of illegal drugs in Africa. There is a well-established trade in all major illicit drugs in South Africa, where cannabis, methaqualone (known locally as mandrax), methamphetamine (known locally as tik ), and MDMA (ecstasy) are produced for domestic consumption and international export. East Africa is reportedly a growing transit point for heroin from Southwest Asia mainly to Europe, and heroin abuse is a relatively small but growing problem in Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa, and Zambia, as well as in Egypt, in North Africa. As drug abuse continues to grow in Africa, the INCB has raised concerns about the absence of sufficient medical facilities available for drug treatment and rehabilitation.

Focus on West Africa: Explaining the Emergence of the Sub-region as a Global Cocaine Transit Hub

In the 1980s and 1990s, Nigerian-dominated criminal organizations active in many countries became key players in the international smuggling of heroin, particularly into the United States, drawing the concern of U.S. policy makers. Apart from heroin, however, West Africa long remained a minor destination and transshipment point for other illegal drugs from regions outside of Africa. During the past half decade, West Africa has become a prominent locus of international drug trafficking, especially with regard to cocaine being trafficked onward to Europe, as previously discussed.

Driving Factors

West Africa's increasing use as a trafficking nexus appears to have resulted from changes in the mix of disincentives and incentives, or "push" and "pull" factors, that have traditionally structured international drug trafficking patterns.

Push Factors

Push factors, notably with regard to cocaine, include heightened U.S. anti-drug and counter-terrorism law enforcement and border control efforts, and U.S. and European interdiction efforts targeting northern trans-Atlantic cocaine routes directly connecting South America cocaine production sources with European destination markets. Such activities have reportedly gradually forced smuggling southward toward Africa's western coast, to the waters off Cape Verde en route to the Canary Islands and the Iberian peninsula, and further south, to destinations from Mauritania to as far south as Nigeria.

Other push factors include continued counterdrug pressure in source countries, stepped-up U.S. drug interdiction efforts in U.S. drug transit zones in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and an expansion of cocaine exports via Venezuela and Brazil from Colombia, in part due to increased involvement in the cocaine trade by the Colombian FARC rebel group, as previously discussed. Growing Mexican government pressure on violent and politically powerful Mexican trafficking organizations, which have enjoyed a high degree of control of over traffic passing through Mexico into the United States—as well as competition between these groups—may also be driving South American criminal organizations to seek alternative non-U.S. markets and transit routes. Other factors include the declining value of the U.S. dollar prior to August 2008, declines in U.S. seizures attributed to increased interdiction efforts, and relatively stable cocaine demand in the United States, which remains the largest single cocaine consumption market globally.

Pull Factors

Important pull factors, or incentives attracting increased cocaine transit through West Africa, include the high value of the Euro in recent years, steadily rising European cocaine use rates and strong demand, and stable or rising cocaine prices in Europe, where cocaine prices are as much as double the level of U.S. prices, according to the UNODC. West Africa is also attractive to traffickers because it is the nearest land mass located en route from South America to Europe. Traffickers may have also been attracted to the lack of effective drug interdiction in countries such as Venezuela and Brazil—countries that are well-positioned as transit countries for cocaine movement across the Atlantic toward Africa and Europe.

Regional institutional and other state and economic weaknesses in the sub-region are other major pull factors. West Africa is seen as attractive to traffickers because many countries there lack law enforcement and border control capabilities and resources, and are characterized by high levels of corruption, poverty, and unemployment, as discussed below. Traffickers operating in many West African countries are likely to face relatively lower risks of apprehension by law enforcement than in many other world regions where police and the justice system are more effective or less susceptible to corruption. Large-scale traffickers with access to large amounts of capital are also well-positioned, given high rates of poverty and unemployment in the region, to tap a diverse pool of potential African accomplices who may be willing to accept payment in exchange for facilitating or directly engaging in trafficking activities. Latin American traffickers may also be able to tap into an extensive pool of experienced West African drug traffickers to facilitate drug transit through the region, as well as to connect with other criminals in West Africa with expertise in related illicit activities, including money laundering, human smuggling, and document fraud.

Driving Factors: Two Applied Examples

Some of the push and pull factors discussed above—as well as state characteristics discussed in the earlier "Regional Vulnerabilities" the text box—are illustrated by a rise in trafficking in recent years in Guinea-Bissau, a tiny impoverished country that suffered a civil war in 1998 and has been wracked by numerous coups d'état, putsches, political assassinations, periodic civil unrest, and chronic military interference in governance. It has seen a sharp rise in trafficking, in part due to geographic factors: its territory contains a remote, lightly populated island archipelago and many colonial-era airstrips. Numerous reports also suggest that trafficking is often undertaken or facilitated by state security personnel, notably elements within the military, which is among the most influential institutions in the country.

Such reports indicate that the country fundamentally lacks a capacity to counter trafficking. The national police system is highly underfunded and operates without some of the most basic equipment, notably including vehicles and fuel for them; the 60-person drug control agency has one vehicle and police reportedly use public taxis for official business, such as transporting arrested persons. Police also receive "low salaries that are seldom paid, lack phones, computers, and often even electricity. They have almost no ships to patrol a rugged coastline, and little fuel for their few police cars. Moreover, many police officers can neither shoot a gun nor swim; the latter, a real problem in a country with a long coastline and many islands." The judiciary is significantly under-resourced and the country is without a prison, reportedly prompting judges to refrain from passing jail sentences on convicted offenders. Many of these problems are recognized by the government of Guinea-Bissau. The relatively new president of the country, Malam Bacai Sanha, who was elected in July 2009, has pledged to end Guinea-Bissau's use as a hub for drug trafficking.

Guinea-Bissau's southern neighbor, Guinea, has also reportedly emerged as a key cocaine transshipment point. Investigations by the junta that took power after President Lansana Conte's death in late 2008 indicate that Conte's son and numerous top security sector officials were involved in cocaine trafficking and used state resources, including diplomatic pouch traffic, in their activities. Its anti-drug police unit, while slightly better equipped than that of Guinea-Bissau, is also reportedly highly under-resourced and lacks operational capabilities. According to the State Department, the police agency that was until recently in charge of counternarcotics activities lacks "almost everything—training, equipment, investigating skills, and organizational motivation—to accomplish its mission."

Role of West African Criminal Syndicates

West African crime groups operate in more than 80 countries and are organized into more than 500 cells internationally. They have long been involved in heroin trafficking and marketing, but increasingly also smuggle cocaine, other drugs and types of contraband, including persons, and are involved in diverse other crime, such as financial fraud. Financial crimes, including 419 fraud schemes, reportedly cost the United States alone between $1 billion and $2 billion per year. The transnational reach of such groups has given them a reputation as being among the most aggressively expansionist perpetrators of crime internationally. West African crime groups are primarily engaged in financial frauds and drug trafficking. The United States and the United Kingdom are reportedly key targets of West African crime groups, but these groups operate small cells in strategically useful locations worldwide (e.g., in illicit drug source and producing countries, financial centers in which crime proceeds can be laundered with relative ease, and key ports of entry and other international transportation hubs). West Africans have long been associated with trafficking of diverse drugs through south and southwest Asian countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia, China, the Philippines, and India.

With respect to drug trafficking, West African crime groups in the 1980s were one of the primary groups to popularize the relatively low-risk but sophisticated use of low-level traffickers, called couriers or mules, to traffic drugs across international borders via commercial passenger flights. When using this method of drug smuggling, West African crime groups sometimes plant "decoy" couriers who intentionally draw the attention of law enforcement personnel and therefore increase the chances of one or more couriers on the same flight—often couriers trafficking greater amounts of the contraband substance—to avoid detection. West African crime groups also recruit "low profile" couriers, such as Caucasians, women with children, the elderly, or the disabled, who may be less likely to draw the attention of authorities.

Few publicly available documents describe the organizational structure and composition of West African crime groups—and those that do broadly describe them as highly fluid and adaptable, loosely organized across a networked web of West African diaspora communities worldwide. Individual West African crime groups vary, but in general, they

draw members from families or communities with which they have close national, ethnic, regional, or kinship ties; are composed of small, compartmentalized cells that often range in size between 2 and 10 members, and limit members' access to information or details about a criminal network to specific operations or tasks for which they are responsible; communicate mostly in African indigenous languages, which often insulates the crime group from outside infiltration; often function on a project-by-project basis, with impermanent operating structures that last only as long as a given project; may include members who are simultaneously active in more than one crime network; rarely fall under the permanent control of a static leader and loyalty to a single crime boss is not required; and are mainly motivated to participate in criminal activity in the pursuit of profit.

These characteristics contrast sharply with those of traditional organized crime, modeled on the Italian mafia and Chinese triads. While membership in both traditional, non-African organized crime and West African groups typically relies on kin-based, ethnic ties, the former groups tend to be organized hierarchically, with senior leaders making decisions and low-level actors carrying out the orders. By contrast, membership in West African crime groups tends to be task-based and revolve around distinct criminal specialties (e.g., procuring drugs, falsifying passports and travel documentation, recruiting couriers, laundering illicit proceeds, and similar activities). West African crime groups also tend to be more willing than others to cooperate with other West African crime groups, rather than to compete for turf or dominance in a given crime sector. Instead, some have been known to pool their joint resources in order to improve their mutual profit potential. Their networked organizations also make West African crime groups more immune to tactics typically used by law enforcement to dismantle traditional organized crime groups, which can involve either targeting the senior leader or pitting several groups against one another.

U.S. Policy

In general, U.S. policy responses to the rise in drug trafficking through Africa remain in the formative stages. Many African countries lack effective law enforcement agencies and judicial systems, which fundamentally limit counternarcotics efforts in the region. In many cases, substantial U.S. and European operational cooperation or capacity-building assistance has accompanied African government efforts to increase drug trafficking monitoring, detection, and seizure rates. A fundamental challenge confronting policy makers is how to develop a strategy and find the resources to both stem the rising flow of drug trafficking through Africa—particularly West Africa—in the short term, through such means as effective interdiction operations, and simultaneously address the underlying, long-term law enforcement capacity weaknesses that make the region vulnerable to drug trafficking.

Several U.S. government agencies are currently developing policy strategies to achieve such ends, and the amounts of personnel, financial, and other resources being devoted to anti-drug efforts in the region are increasing. These efforts include the establishment of at least one new DEA office in Ghana, and potentially more in other countries in the region in the future, including in Nairobi, Kenya. Total Africa-related State Department counternarcotics assistance is gradually expanding; it rose from approximately $0.5 million in FY2006 to $1.6 million in FY2009. The Obama Administration requested $7.5 million for such purposes in Africa in FY2010. In February 2010, the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) released highlights from its FY2011 budget request. In it, the Administration requested $13.2 million for West Africa counternarcotics programs conducted by the State Department to enhance law enforcement investigative skills and justice sector capabilities to prosecute and convict drug traffickers.

P.L. 111-117 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010) did not explicitly allocate funds for Africa-specific counternarcotics efforts, as it did for some other countries and regions, although the bill does fund a variety of programs that are likely to support such ends in Africa. Levels of funding for counternarcotics efforts in Africa remain small compared to some other regions, but there are indications that greater policy attention—in terms of strategy development, programming, resources, and international cooperation—is being devoted to combating the illegal drug trade in West Africa and elsewhere on the continent.

Interagency Approach?

No public interagency counternarcotics strategy focusing specifically on Africa has been formulated. However, several internal U.S. government agency strategy documents outline specific plans and missions. One such agency strategy involves the State Department's International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Bureau (INL). As of February 2010, INL's strategy was focused specifically on providing assistance to African countries for the targeting, investigation, and prosecution of narcotics traffickers. In an effort to ensure that U.S. counternarcotics assistance is not misused and for cost reasons, assistance in the form of interdiction equipment, such as patrol boats and law enforcement communications equipment, is reportedly discouraged. In addition, INL has, since 2008, conducted several country assessments in West Africa (see Table 10 ). INL conducts these assessments jointly with other U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense (DOD), DEA, and the Department of the Treasury. The country assessments are intended to inform the development of multi-agency counternarcotics aid programs for the individual countries and for the region as a whole.

Another indication of a growing U.S. government focus on counternarcotics in Africa is the inclusion of seven African countries in the 2009 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), released by the State Department but consisting of interagency agreement on the years' top foreign counternarcotics priorities. The INCSR is an annual report mandated by Congress that provides a country-by-country analysis of selected drug producing or transit countries, including a description of the current drug situation and government efforts to improve conditions. The 2008 INCSR identified West Africa as an emerging "hub for cocaine trafficking from South America to Europe." New African country narratives for the 2009 INCSR include Cote D'Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

DOD has also developed a counternarcotics strategy for the region. The FY2009 National Defense Authorization Act, P.L. 110-417 , requires that DOD, in consultation with the State Department, submit to Congress no later than June 30, 2009, "a comprehensive strategy ... with regard to counter-narcotics efforts in Africa, with an emphasis on West Africa and the Maghreb." Required components in the requested report include a description of the overall U.S. counternarcotics policy for Africa and DOD's roles and missions, including the U.S. Combatant Command for Africa, AFRICOM, in support of overall U.S. counternarcotics policy in Africa. The required report, which was cleared for release to the requisite congressional committees in September 2009, stated that it is DOD policy to "train, equip, assist, advise, and support partner nation law enforcement, paramilitary, and military units that have a counternarcotics and narco-terrorism mission." DOD's primary stated counternarcotics missions in the region included (1) detecting and monitoring drug trafficking; (2) sharing information with relevant enforcement officials in the region; and (3) building foreign counternarcotics capacity related to drug detection and monitoring, information sharing, interdiction, enforcement, and border control.

As of early June 2009, the State Department's INL bureau had hosted one working-level interagency meeting on counternarcotics and related issues in Africa. It was attended by representatives from the State Department, DEA, DOD, Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Security Council (NSC). Each agency provided an overview of its assistance in Africa. Participants also discussed next steps in developing and coordinating a comprehensive approach to the Administration's counternarcotics assistance in Africa.

Implementation

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is responsible for overseeing the implementation of overall U.S. drug control policy, including international counternarcotics efforts. Primary agencies involved in formulating and implementing counternarcotics efforts in Africa include the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), and the DEA.

The State Department coordinates all U.S. foreign assistance to support international efforts to combat illicit narcotics production and trafficking. DOD is responsible for the detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs, and is also authorized to provide counternarcotics training and equipping assistance to foreign countries in certain circumstances. DEA leads U.S. coordination of law enforcement investigations involving international production, trafficking and sale of illegal drugs and other controlled substances. The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for drug-related maritime security and border control and related policy issues, while the Treasury Department occasionally undertakes activities to combat drug-related financial crimes.

The United States has begun to increase multilateral cooperation on countering drug trafficking in Africa with European and other partners, both informally and formally. Formal coordination takes place through mechanisms such as the U.S.-European Union (EU) Drug Troika talks. In addition, since 2007, the United States has shared counternarcotics intelligence and other information with the European Maritime Analysis and Operation Center–Narcotics (MAOC-N), located in Lisbon, Portugal. In the 2008 U.S.-E.U. Summit Declaration, the United States and the European Union also symbolically committed to continue their counternarcotics cooperation, particularly as it related to drug trafficking through West Africa.

Counternarcotics Foreign Assistance

State Department

The two major sources of counternarcotics foreign assistance to the region are administered by the State Department and DOD. The State Department provides counterdrug assistance to a number of countries in Africa, primarily through programs funded under its International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) account. A key INCLE program funded by the State Department since 2001 is the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Gaborone, Botswana. There, the United States trains approximately 500 African law enforcement officials each year, providing courses on drug enforcement, anti-corruption, financial crimes, border security, and other matters. INL also provides bilateral anti-crime assistance, which includes efforts to bolster counternarcotics capacities, to a number of African countries. The Obama Administration's FY2010 budget request included $7.5 million in counterdrug foreign aid to seven countries—up since the Bush Administration's FY2009 budget request, which included $1.45 million in counterdrug foreign aid to six countries in Africa (see Table 11 ).

DOD/AFRICOM

DOD provides foreign assistance to train, equip, and improve counternarcotics capacity and capabilities in foreign countries under two authorities, commonly known as Section 1004 and Section 1033. Section 1004 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 1991 ( P.L. 101-510 ), authorizes DOD to provide counternarcotics-related training and transport of foreign law enforcement personnel. Under its Section 1004 authority, DOD has provided counternarcotics training assistance for several years. Section 1033 of the NDAA for FY1998 ( P.L. 105-85 ), as amended, enables DOD to assist 22 foreign countries' counternarcotics efforts by providing non-lethal protective and utility personnel equipment, including equipment for navigation, secure and non-secure communications, and radar surveillance, as well as night vision systems, vehicles, aircraft, and boats.

In FY2009, Congress authorized DOD to provide Guinea-Bissau and Senegal with Section 1033 counternarcotics assistance; this was the first instance of a congressional grant of authority to DOD under Section 1033 to provide counternarcotics aid to African countries. In FY2009, DOD estimates that it will provide approximately $19.3 million for counternarcotics assistance in Africa, mainly through AFRICOM (see Table 12 ). The bulk of the assistance is committed to regional counternarcotics programming, which cannot be attributed to a single country alone. Leading individual country recipients in FY2009 include Nigeria ($1 million), Mauritania ($0.9 million), Liberia ($0.8 million), Cameroon ($0.6 million), and Ghana ($0.6 million). DOD also provides counternarcotics-related Excess Defense Articles to some African countries.

DOD's 2009 counternarcotics strategy in AFRICOM's area of responsibility identifies specific priority sub-regions and countries in Africa where DOD plans on focusing counternarcotics-related capacity building efforts first. In order of priority, the sub-regions are West Africa, North Africa, East Africa, South Africa, and Central Africa (see Table 13 ).

Maritime and Airport Security Assistance

While maritime security in Africa is a general issue of interest for U.S. policy, counterdrug-related maritime security efforts in the region have focused mainly on West Africa in recent years. According to General William E. Ward, Commander of AFRICOM, the "absence of credible maritime security capacity" along the coast of West Africa has allowed drug trafficking and other criminal activity in the region to thrive. To address such challenges, various DOD elements, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard and several U.S. civilian agencies, have become involved in an increasing number of bilateral and multilateral maritime security cooperation activities in West African coastal countries.

One such training initiative is the Africa Partnership Station (APS), implemented by U.S. Navy Forces Africa and AFRICOM, in partnership with U.S. civilian and non-governmental agencies, to increase the capacity of West and Central African coastal states in the Gulf of Guinea to patrol and monitor their waters. APS vessels sponsor a variety of joint exercises, on-board trainings, and port visits aimed at enhancing diverse maritime security capacities. In addition, since early 2008, at least one U.S. Navy surface combatant is on patrol off West Africa at any time, a threefold increase in such a patrol presence since 2002. Other projects underway include maritime port and airport security assistance and infrastructure construction and related training. DOD is involved in constructing boat and refueling facilities for West and Central African navies and coast guards and seeks to enhance the capacity of African port and customs security agencies by providing training and equipment for law enforcement personnel, including scanners and other facility improvements.

Detection, Monitoring, and Interdiction Operations

Several other DOD elements are involved in the detection and monitoring of illicit drugs that flow through Africa. The combatant command for Africa, AFRICOM, which began initial operations in October 2007 and became fully operational in October 2008, includes counternarcotics efforts as one of its strategic areas of activity. DOD's Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATF-South), which traditionally has coordinated drug interdiction monitoring and detection operations in the transit zone between South America and the United States, also coordinates with AFRICOM and European counterpart agencies regarding similar operations relating to the trafficking of drugs from South America to Africa. JIATF-South-European cooperation has, in particular, focused on the goals and activities of the European Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre—Narcotics (MAOC-N), located in Portugal. DOD is also involved in the establishment of an "Information Fusion Center" in Cape Verde, which would help to collect and share drug-related intelligence.

Drug Enforcement Administration Role

DEA, with DOD/AFRICOM funding, is seeking to establish U.S.-vetted African police units, which would help expand DEA's counternarcotics operations cooperation with African governments. Although plans are not final, DEA hopes to establish the first of such units on the continent in Ghana, which would be the first of its kind in Africa. The pending proposal calls for Ghanaian personnel to be hand-picked by DEA to undergo extra training, as well as to undergo background checks, including polygraphs. To date, the United States established no vetted African law enforcement units, largely because personnel and funding have not been provided for such purposes. Vetted units are designed to improve U.S. capacity to coordinate with host nations regarding counternarcotics matters and to minimize the risk of joint law enforcement operations from being compromised through official corruption.

DEA also participates in drug interdiction and other drug-related law enforcement operations in Africa. The State Department's 2009 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report states that DEA, in coordination with European and African law enforcement agencies, "has developed and implemented a program to gain increased understanding of narcotics trafficking in West Africa, fill intelligence gaps, and promote intelligence sharing." Public details about such activities are limited, however, to avoid compromising ongoing DEA operations.

Recent DEA-related activities in Africa include the extradition of two Colombians from Sierra Leone in April 2009, the first such defendant transfer in the history of U.S.-Sierra Leone relations. A third suspect who is a material witness in the case was also transferred to U.S. custody. The Colombians were allegedly involved in an attempt to smuggle about 600 kilograms of cocaine to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 2008, on a small plane. Another U.S. case in 2009 involved an alleged Colombian drug cell head, who was expelled from Togo and transferred to U.S. custody to face U.S. drug charges. In 2006 and 2007, a DEA investigation also disrupted an Afghanistan-based drug trafficking organization's heroin smuggling route through West Africa en route to the United States; two of the targets of the investigation were expelled from Ghana and convicted of the drug trafficking charges in the United States.

Key legal tools in such efforts include two provisions of U.S. law—21 U.S.C. 959 and 21 U.S.C. 960a—that provide the DEA with the "extra-territorial jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute drug offenses with a nexus to the U.S. even though the drugs in question have not actually entered the United States." Similar authority is provided in cases in which a drug trafficking crime can be tied to terrorist activities anywhere in the world.

Drug-Related Anti-money Laundering Efforts

To combat money laundering originating from drug proceeds, Congress passed the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act in 1999. It authorizes the President to target and block financial criminal proceeds of "Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker Kingpins," or SDNTKs. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) implements the SDNTK asset blocking program. In 2000, the first year that the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act was implemented, the President identified 12 SDNTKs, 2 of whom were Nigerians. The President has since named a total of 70 SDNTKs, but apart from the two Nigerians designated in 2000, a husband and wife team, no others have been nationals of an African country.

Multilateral and Regional Efforts to Combat Drug Trafficking in Africa

In addition to the United States, multiple African and donor governments and multilateral organizations are involved in combating drug trafficking in Africa. In general, while most actors involved at the multilateral and regional level agree that drug trafficking through Africa is a growing phenomenon and poses a variety of law enforcement challenges, a shared consensus on how to address these challenges has not emerged.

Limited resources and, in some cases, limited political will, often hamper the effectiveness of African and multinational efforts to combat the illegal drug trade. For these and other reasons, some African policy makers reportedly do not view drug trafficking as a priority problem. As one report explains: "for such poor countries ... unless funded from abroad, the advantages of directing policing resources to countering narcotics trafficking are not as apparent as in the rich consumer states that they supply."

Nevertheless, there is growing support among African governments for efforts to address the drug situation, both at the national level and in multilateral fora. Some West African countries, notably Cape Verde, Senegal, Ghana, and Sierra Leone, have recently won praise from U.S. officials for their efforts to mount effective law enforcement responses to the problem, and for their willingness to cooperate with U.S. and international counternarcotics efforts. Forty-five of 53 African countries have signed all three international U.N. drug control conventions.

A growing focus on the issue of drug trafficking in Africa by various U.N. agencies and analogous concerns at the national level has also brought the issue to the attention of the U.N. Security Council, which held a special session on drug trafficking as a threat to peace and security in Africa on December 8, 2009. The discussion focused on the "numerous security risks caused by drug trafficking ... in Africa," among other world regions, including "serious threats posed" by linkages between transnational organized crime and the "increasing link, in some cases, between drug trafficking and the financing of terrorism."

Key multilateral, European, and African country groupings that are developing efforts to combat drug trafficking in Africa include the following:

U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) . Established in 1997, UNODC is mandated to assist Member States in their efforts to combat illegal drugs, transnational crime, and terrorism. UNODC publishes an annual report on drug trafficking, called the World Drug Report, and collects data on drug cultivation, production, seizures, and other drug-related statistics. In Africa, UNODC maintains five field offices: one in Egypt, covering Northern Africa and the Middle East; one in Kenya, covering Eastern Africa; one in Nigeria; one in Senegal, covering West and Central Africa; and one in South Africa, covering Southern Africa. These offices report on drug trafficking and other criminal activity trends at the regional level. They also help to build anti-crime policy and institutional capacities at the regional and country level, including with respect to counternarcotics efforts, through programs that foster drug law enforcement mentoring and training, justice and penal sector reform, and drug demand reduction. UNODC also supports Data for Africa , a project launched in 2005 that is designed to increase the amount and reliability of data and information on African crime and drug trends. U.N. Office for West Africa (UNOWA) . Established in 2001 by the U.N. Security Council, UNOWA is mandated to further the United Nations' peace and security objectives in West Africa. UNOWA focuses on cross-border illicit activity in the sub-region, among other issues, and helps to raise West African government's awareness of the challenges posed by drug trafficking. It also facilitates related multilateral security and political cooperation in the sub-region. African Union (AU ) . Established in 2002, the African Union is a regional multilateral grouping of all states in Sub-Saharan and North Africa except Morocco. The African Union has addressed drug trafficking through its Revised AU Plan of Action on Drug Control and Crime Prevention (2007-2012) . In March 2009, the A.U. Commission and the UNODC launched a joint project to support the implementation of the A.U. Plan of Action, building on earlier joint efforts focused on drug demand reduction and drug trafficking, among other crime prevention and criminal justice issues. Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) . Established in 1975, ECOWAS is a 15-member multilateral grouping of West Africa states that promotes regional economic integration and security cooperation. Recently, ECOWAS has begun to play a greater role in combating drug trafficking in the region. In October 2008, an ECOWAS ministerial conference, organized in collaboration with the UNODC and UNOWA and held in Praia, Cape Verde, adopted a draft Political Declaration on Prevention of Drug Abuse, Drug Trafficking and Organized Crimes in West Africa. It adopted a medium-term ECOWAS regional action plan to address drug trafficking, organized crime, and drug abuse in West Africa. In July 2009, United Nations agencies and INTERPOL launched the West Africa Coast Initiative, which seeks to support the implementation of the ECOWAS regional plan. A key part of this initiative will be to establish transnational crime units (TCUs), initially in Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and FATF-Style Regional Bodies (FSRBs) in Africa . Established in 1989, FATF is a multilateral organization that establishes international standards for legislative and regulatory reform to combat money laundering, including drug-related money laundering and terrorist financing. South Africa is the only African member of FATF. However, two African FSRBs―the Eastern and South African Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) and the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA, its French acronym)―support and promote the standards established by FATF. International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) . The INCB is an independent and quasi-judicial control organ that monitors the implementation of U.N. drug control treaties. In 2007, the INCB conducted a program to monitor and prevent illicit trade in precursor chemicals through Africa, called Operation Crystal Flow. The findings from that operation proved that Africa is a transshipment point for international trade in illegally diverted precursor chemicals. In its recent annual reports, the INCB has urged African countries and donor nations to continue to take steps to curtail cocaine trafficking and the emergent precursor trade in Africa. INTERPOL . Established in 1923, the International Criminal Police Organization, or INTERPOL, is a 187-member state organization that facilitates international police co-operation and efforts to prevent and combat international crime. With respect to counternarcotics issues, INTERPOL assists its member states to identify new drug trafficking trends and criminal organizations, and supports law enforcement efforts to combat drug trafficking. In Africa, INTERPOL launched Project COCAF (Cocaine Trafficking from Western Africa to Europe) in 2006, which facilitates information sharing between European and African law enforcement agencies to identify and target emerging drug trafficking routes, particularly cocaine shipment on commercial air flights from West Africa. INTERPOL has also facilitated two other related efforts, Project PROTEUS, which was designed to combat cocaine trafficking originating in South America and transiting Western Africa en route to Europe, and Project DRUM, an effort to target the diversion of precursor chemicals in Africa. INTERPOL is also involved in policy capacity building in Africa, through a project called OASIS Africa (Providing Operational Assistance, Services, and Infrastructure Support to African Police Forces). The organization also deploys Response Teams that provide specialized expertise and investigative aid to countries facing major or serious police issues or cases. European Union (EU) . In December 2007, the EU committed to greater counternarcotics cooperation with and assistance for Africa in the Joint EU-Africa Strategy, adopted at the Lisbon Summit. The European Commission (EC) and several European countries also provide counternarcotics assistance to some African countries at the bilateral and regional or sub-regional levels, and through international multilateral institutions, like the UNODC and the Dublin Group. Two additional initiatives that are partially funded by the EC include the Maritime Analysis and Operations Center—Narcotics (MAOC-N), located in Portugal and established in 2007, and the Mediterranean Anti-Drug Coordination Center (CeCLAD-M), located in France and established in 2008. These efforts support maritime surveillance and intelligence coordination pertaining to drug trafficking interdiction operations along maritime routes between Africa and Europe. ECOWAS and the EU Ministerial Troika also meet regularly to promote mutual security cooperation, including with respect to counternarcotics efforts. The EU is reportedly planning to allocate between €18 and 22 million for drug interdiction and information gathering; in addition, the EC has pledged to provide €15 million in support of institutional development issues in the law enforcement and judicial sectors under an effort dubbed the "Dakar Initiative."

Congressional Role and Possible Oversight Issues

Congress is involved in many aspects of U.S. international drug control policy. Members regularly appropriate funds for counterdrug initiatives, conduct oversight activities on federal counterdrug programs, and legislate changes to agency authorities and other counterdrug policies. Recent activities, as discussed above, include the 110 th Congress's passage of P.L. 110-417 , which required a DOD counternarcotics strategy for Africa and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's conduct of a June 23, 2009, hearing entitled Confronting Drug Trafficking in West Africa . During the hearing, the Chair and Ranking Member each expressed their concern regarding the issue, and stated that further policy efforts to halt rising drug trafficking in Africa are necessary. The possible nexus of cocaine trafficking and terrorism also featured prominently in a November 2009 SFRC Subcommittee on African Affairs hearing U.S. counterterrorism priorities and strategies in the Sahel Region.

Congress may also respond to increasing executive branch prioritization of counternarcotics assistance efforts in Africa, as previously discussed. Key Africa-related counternarcotics issues that Congress may consider, among others, include the following:

Data Reliability: Implications for Analysis and Policymaking

The analysis of drug trafficking and use trends in Africa—and, in turn, the formulation of policy solutions to combat drugs in Africa—is inherently limited by the frequent lack of basic crime and law enforcement statistics, drug-related health and social indicators, and security and justice sector evaluations in Africa. Data on domestic drug use are often unavailable or cover limited time periods. Statistics on drug-related arrests, prosecutions, incarcerations, seizures, and other related trends are often unreliable or non-existent. There is also a paucity of actionable intelligence data in the region; as the UNODC has reported, many of the largest drug seizures in recent years in Africa were detected through foreign tips, as a result of non-African law enforcement actions. Similarly, several of the largest cocaine seizures undertaken by African law enforcement appear to have arisen from accidental detection and other coincidental circumstances, rather than as a result of systematic intelligence gathering or other law enforcement operations. As a result of the lack of data on drug trafficking trends and patterns, estimates of the amount of cocaine currently transiting Africa vary widely, with estimates ranging from 40 metric tons to 300 metric tons per year, as previously discussed. In the absence of better data on seizures and traffic volumes, accurate projections of emergent and prospective trafficking-related trends and developments—which may provide the basis for allocating resources and formulating policy responses to the problem—are likely to be difficult to generate. While cocaine trafficking through Africa has risen sharply in recent years, it remains unclear whether a reported drop in seizures in 2009, for instance, is indicative of a short-term or a long-term trend.

Several observers have argued that more and better intelligence and data collection on the nature of the drug threat in Africa is needed. This could take the form of increased human intelligence collection and the increased deployment of technology-based methods for detecting and monitoring drug flows transiting the region. Efforts to increase such Africa-related law enforcement resources, however, are nevertheless likely to be countered by contending pressures to devote greater resources to similar objectives in other parts of the world where the drug threat is viewed as being greater. In the absence of better information on the drug threat in Africa, some observers may argue that significant shifts in U.S. attention to the region may not be warranted. Others may argue that without good information on the problem, policy makers may be prone to formulate policies that ineffectively respond to current challenges, or do not address key aspects of the problem, such as the reported involvement in African drug trafficking of criminal organizations targeted by the United States in other regions.

Short-Term, Targeted Counternarcotics Assistance Versus Long-Term Law Enforcement Capacity Building

Given that many African countries lack effective law enforcement agencies and judicial systems and resources to fund them, many observers have argued that donor countries, including the United States, should consider scaling up and expanding existing counternarcotics capacity-building assistance programs in Africa. Such recommendations raise questions over how to achieve that end. Some policy makers may contend that, given the urgency and extent of the drug trafficking threat faced by African countries, an immediate rise in U.S. and European interdiction operations, quick impact training and equipping programs, and other short-term operational activity are necessary. Others, however, may argue that in the absence of a comprehensive law enforcement and judicial system capacity-building, the results of such short-term assistance are likely to be fragmentary and ineffective in the immediate terms, and negligible with regard to long-term trends. Without a capacity to ensure fair trials; effectively prosecute potentially wealthy, high-profile defendants; properly control seized drugs for evidentiary purposes and subsequently destroy them; enforce prison sentences; or to deter police corruption, for instance, overall efforts to curtail drug trafficking may founder. Such capacity-building assistance would likely include a broad but integrated combination of law enforcement, rule of law, and government infrastructure and process training and assistance, as well as facility construction or upgrades and providing operational equipment.

Resource Level and Allocation Considerations

Ultimately, questions over the relative mix of immediate impact and long-term development that may be necessary boil down to decisions on policy prioritization and resource allocation. Some policy makers are likely to argue that both short-term interventions and long-term capacity-building efforts may be necessary. In a budgetary context in which federal fiscal resources are increasingly limited, however, decision makers will need to carefully consider what mix of resources is likely to have the greatest effects with respect to both time frames.

While some may be inclined to provide such aid, others may question whether a substantial level of U.S. counternarcotics assistance for Africa is warranted at all, since much of the recent growth in cocaine traffic through West Africa is believed to be destined to Europe, not the United States. As a result, some may suggest that European countries should provide the bulk of counternarcotics assistance in Africa. A related line of debate may center on whether the extent and effectiveness of current European counterdrug efforts in Africa are adequate, and whether individual European countries or the EU plan to increase their counterdrug presence in the region. Such views, however, may be countered by those who contend that drug trafficking in Africa poses a variety of direct threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests in Africa.

Currently, the U.S. counterdrug footprint in Africa is expanding in terms of resources and personnel. The mix of resources being devoted to such efforts reflects short term and long-term policy objectives and emphasizes the importance of cooperation with multilateral and U.N. agencies and with European governments and the EU. The State Department's FY2009 estimated level of funding for such purposes is 13 times as large as that for FY2006, and during the same period, the number of African recipient countries targeted to receive such assistance has grown from just one country (Nigeria) to six. Additional resources to combat drug trafficking through the region have also begun to flow through DOD entities and initiatives, including AFRICOM, APS, and JIATF-South. DEA is also scaling up its presence, having recently augmented its three existing regional offices by opening a new office in Accra, Ghana. DEA also has provisional plans to expand its presence in other parts of Africa farther by opening up five additional country offices and developing new law enforcement operations in five additional locations. In addition, various other U.S. plans for other counterdrug training programs and other projects are also under development.

Despite recent and prospective increases, counternarcotics efforts in Africa remain relatively small when compared to U.S. counternarcotics programs in other parts of the world. In FY2008, for example, the State Department obligated 0.12% of its total counternarcotics aid budget to Africa, while the State Department's FY2010 request for counternarcotics assistance to Africa—which is significantly larger than that of any previous year—comprises just 0.49% of total global State Department counternarcotics assistance. Personnel resources and attention devoted to drug trafficking in Africa are also limited. The State Department has one Transnational Crime Affairs Officer stationed in the region (in Abuja, Nigeria) and has a limited diplomatic presence in some African countries affected by drug trafficking, such as Guinea-Bissau, where the State Department maintains an office staffed only with Guinea-Bissau nationals.

Defining Agency Roles and Responsibilities

U.S. government agency roles and responsibilities in combating drugs in Africa are not yet clearly defined in a public strategy document for the region. In practice, the State Department's INL Bureau has taken the lead on counterdrug matters in the region, focusing primarily on country assessments to inform future programming efforts. INL, however, is only one of several U.S. government agencies or agency units that could play a role in counterdrug efforts in Africa. As U.S. assistance for such ends grows, the 111 th Congress may see a need to weigh in on what agencies play which policy implementation and coordination roles, including with respect to the relative balance of civilian and military agency participation in such efforts, as did the 110 th Congress with regard to the military's role.

In the absence of a clear integrated, inter-agency strategy for the region, several questions about agency participation in counterdrug efforts in Africa and interagency coordination may arise. One such question is whether an interagency coordination body should formally be established to ensure policy consistency and avoid program overlap and duplication across U.S. government agencies and offices. Presently, no such body formally exists, although informal inter-agency working group sessions have taken place on an ad hoc basis. If policy makers decide that such a coordinating body is necessary, secondary questions include which agencies should participate in the group, which agency or agencies might chair or co-chair the group, and whether the members of the group should meet at the principal, deputies, or working group levels. Similar questions regarding program coordination on the ground in countries in Africa may also arise.

A related question pertains to the emerging role of the U.S. military, particularly with respect to the role of the regional combatant command for Africa, AFRICOM—and the proportion of African counternarcotics assistance currently provided by DOD (approximately $19.3 million in FY2009 compared to the State Department's approximately $1.6 million in FY2009). Some observers have questioned whether DOD's growing role in counternarcotics activities and AFRICOM's prospective participation in these activities, and others that are widely seen as primarily civilian in nature, is appropriate. Proponents of an expanded DOD counternarcotics role generally argue that the U.S. military is well-equipped with the resources and monitoring and detecting skills to help foreign governments counter powerful drug trafficking organizations and that the absence of DOD's participation in counternarcotics assistance would lessen the effectiveness of U.S. programs. Some may also contend that protecting the integrity of national borders and territory from external threats, including drug trafficking, is an inherently military activity. Opponents, by contrast, may contend that counternarcotics foreign assistance is primarily a law enforcement and intelligence activity and not a core military mission. In the view of some, the training of foreign militaries and police in counternarcotics operations could result in legal dilemmas and human rights controversies arising from a merging of civilian police and military roles, potentially resulting in serious political and diplomatic repercussions for the United States abroad.

Appendix. Cocaine Seizures and African Membership in Illicit Drug Conventions