ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES | 26 SEPTEMBER – 1 OCTOBER 2026
AGENDA ITEM 6: Working better together to elevate cooperation and partnerships, including technical and material assistance and training, at the national, regional and international levels, in crime prevention and criminal justice
Mr/Madam Chair, Excellencies, distinguished delegates,
Allow me to congratulate you and the Bureau on your election, and assure you of Uganda’s full cooperation at this Fifteenth Congress.
No country can prevent or respond to crime alone. Over the past three years, our partnership with UNODC’s Strengthening Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice programme, funded by the Netherlands, has translated cooperation into concrete national results.
At the national level, this partnership has strengthened coordination between our investigative, prosecutorial and financial intelligence agencies – precisely the dedicated cooperation mechanism this Congress’s paper recommends. Building on this, Uganda is establishing a National Coordination Centre for Organised Crime to extend that model across our wider organised crime response. UNODC supported the ODPP to finalise Prosecution-Guided Investigations Guidelines binding prosecutors and police into a single process; a mentorship programme has reached 189 prosecutors, and four Symposiums have trained 400–500 stakeholders yearly on organised and cyber-enabled crime. Our FIA has worked with UNODC to onboard casinos, forex bureaus and insurers onto goAML, while Penal Reform International has delivered rehabilitation support to over 300 justice-affected persons.
At the regional level, Uganda has used UNODC-supported platforms – the Joan Kagezi Memorial Lectures, the East Africa Association of Prosecutors, and the Wildlife Inter-Regional Enforcement network – to exchange practice on organised crime and child protection, continuing at the next WIRE meeting in Nairobi this November.
At the international level, this cooperation has anchored Uganda within the multilateral system: our engagement across the 32nd to 34th sessions of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice culminated in our election as a member; our participation in the 12th Conference of the Parties to UNTOC informed new Mutual Legal Assistance Guidelines; and Uganda was among the first States to sign the UN Convention against Cybercrime in Hanoi. In line with this paper’s call to harmonise mutual legal assistance and extradition frameworks, Uganda is modernising its own decades-old Extradition Act.
Mr/Madam Chair, this paper rightly highlights the value of sustainable, nationally owned technical assistance over one-off training – our own experience confirms it. We call on UNODC and Member States to deepen this support for low- and middle-income countries, whose institutions carry a disproportionate share of the global crime burden. Uganda stands ready to share its experience and continue building these partnerships.
I thank you.