United Nations Focusing on Counterfeit Medicine Trade in West Africa
United Nations officials working with African government ministers and Interpol representatives pledged to fight drug trafficking and organized crime, focusing on counterfeit medicine production and trade throughout West Africa, in Dakar on June 20, 2011.
The inaugural session of the High-Level Policy Committee of the West Africa Coast Initiative was filled with discussion about how to more effectively fight the production of counterfeit drugs, as well as smuggling of illict goods, reports the United Nations.
The meeting is the result of a report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime which showed that the value of illicit goods in the region is greater the gross domestic product for some West African countries. For example, the trade in counterfeit anti-malarial tablets in West Africa is greater than the GDP of Guinea-Bissau and the trade in cigarette smuggling is greater than the GDP of Gambia.
The meeting was attended by UN representatives, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU) and Interpol, as well as justice or interior ministers from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone.