here - Center on International Cooperation - New York University

II. SUGGESTIONS FOR TARGETED
PROGRAMMING
Until recently, limited focus has been placed on
understanding the degree to which structural governance
challenges, including the nature of the political economy
or political settlements, nurture organized crime. In
countries emerging from conflict, the prioritization of
stability and economic growth has at times overshadowed
concerns about the entrenchment of relations between
political elites and organized crime in the post-conflict
phase. In both post-conflict and traditional development
settings (w<strong>here</strong> a country has not gone through an armed
conflict), democratic deficits or perhaps a stagnation of
democratic consolidation appear to be principal enabling
factors of organized crime. Corruption, weak accountability
mechanisms (particularly with regard to political actors and
public officials), weak service delivery, flaws in the electoral
system, weak or inexistent political party, campaign
financing and asset declaration regulatory frameworks,
and the absence of state services in rural areas, are
common in our cases. This section identifies some of these
challenges and suggests a range of targeted actions that
can help build resistance against them into governance
systems. We do not suggest that each and every one of
these actions be implemented across countries. Rather,
as we note in Section III, we suggest that development
actors need to use smart assessment and analysis tools to
guide prioritization of action in a given setting and that a
core guiding principle in responding to organized crime
should be the protection of fundamental rights.
1. PROTECTING THE POLITICAL PROCESS FROM
ORGANIZED CRIME
Organized crime poses enormous governance challenges
for developing countries. All of the countries studied
for this project (except Nepal) are formal multi-party
democracies. However, in most of the cases (including
Nepal), formal institutions are underpinned by extensive
informal systems sustaining patronage and corruption,
and a political economy providing limited services
and protection for citizens. In each of the case studies,
organized crime takes advantage of systemic weaknesses,
for example, through corruption of the electoral, legislative,
and public procurement processes, and corruption of
local administrations. Coercion of politicians and public
service officials by organized criminals also plays into this
situation, as does the reverse side with political actors
taking advantage of organized crime for political gain. In
most cases, a weak or politicized civil society and media, or
an academia with limited voice, provide limited checks on
government complicity with organized crime.
As evident in the cases of Mozambique, Nepal, and Sierra
Leone, countries in and emerging from conflict provide
excellent entry points for organized criminal activity, first to
oil the wheels of war and, later, to obtain or sustain political
advantage. What commences as a domestic enterprise
(or as a transnational enterprise taking advantage of a
domestic problem) often evolves into a complicated
network of local, regional, and international organized
crime actors that penetrate the political system. Unfettered
access to the spoils of organized crime undermines
fledgling democratic institutions, state legitimacy, and the
delivery of services to citizens.
In post-conflict settings, for example Sierra Leone, certain
policy responses, such as disarmament, demobilization
and reintegration (DDR), have often been effective in
meeting specific goals such as contributing to stability.
Such efforts have not, however, effectively integrated
a focus on how to build resilience within the political
system against organized crime and the threats it
poses to democratic consolidation and development.
In Mozambique, for example, the Demobilization and
Reintegration Programme (DRP) has been considered a
‘success.’ Notwithstanding, in the absence of employment
opportunities, many of the mid-to-higher level former
combatants have reintegrated themselves into existing or
emerging illicit networks or have served as intermediaries
or ‘fixers’ between organized crime and the state. The
failure to ensure broad disarmament and destruction
of weapons also provided lucrative entry points to illicit
markets in Mozambique’s near-abroad w<strong>here</strong> organized
crime was also on the rise, creating a destabilizing effect
in the region. It also provided easy access to instruments
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Responding to the Impact of Organized Crime on Developing Countries
NYU
CIC