About AFRIPOL
Building a safer, more secure Africa
The African Union Mechanism for Police Cooperation (AFRIPOL) is the technical institution of the African Union mandated to strengthen and harmonize the capacities of law enforcement agencies across Member States. Its mission is to support African police services in preventing and combating transnational organized crime, terrorism, cybercrime, and other emerging threats to continental security.
To fulfil this mandate, AFRIPOL provides a comprehensive range of support mechanisms, including:
- In-person and online training, including specialized courses via its dedicated e-learning platform;
- Training of trainers to ensure national sustainability of skills;
- Workshops for sharing experiences and best practices among Member States;
- Access to forensic and investigative tools;
- Support to joint operations and cross-border investigations;
- Promotion of public-private partnerships to enhance crime prevention strategies;
- Facilitation of cooperation through a secure communication system and shared databases;
- Immersion internships and scholarship opportunities to develop future law enforcement leaders.
Through these initiatives, AFRIPOL plays a central role in fostering regional and continental police cooperation and contributing to a safer, more secure Africa.
Objectives
AFRIPOL is committed to strengthening police cooperation across Africa. Our primary goals include combating organised transnational crime, terrorism, and cybercrime by developing and reinforcing law enforcement capacities. Discover how AFRIPOL aims to create a safer continent by collaborating with member states and providing essential resources to empower police forces in their crucial mission.
Crime areas
AFRIPOL plays a key role in strengthening the capacity of law enforcement agencies across Africa to prevent and combat complex criminal threats that jeopardize peace, stability, and development.
Our operational focus spans the following priority crime areas:
1. Transnational Organized Crime (TOC)
This includes a wide range of criminal activities that cross borders and require coordinated law enforcement responses:
2. Other strategic crime areas
By enhancing regional cooperation and operational capabilities, AFRIPOL enables African police institutions to effectively address these evolving threats.
Our mission
The AFRIPOL Secretariat is responsible for convening and servicing the General Assembly, the Steering Committee, and other AFRIPOL meetings. It also maintains contact with national and international law enforcement authorities and implements the decisions of the General Assembly and the Steering Committee.
Our Mandate
AFRIPOL builds a safer, more unified Africa by empowering law enforcement agencies across the continent to combat transnational crime.
AFRIPOL is a technical institution of the African Union with a mandate to strengthen cooperation between the police agencies of AU member states in the prevention and fight against organized transnational crime, terrorism, and cybercrime. Its status was adopted by the AU Conference in January 2017 and became effective immediately.
The priority of AFRIPOL is to strengthen and harmonize the capacities of law enforcement agencies in member states and facilitate cooperation and collaboration among them in the prevention and fight against organized transnational crime.
To achieve this goal, AFRIPOL provides law enforcement agencies with online training via its e-learning platform, in-person training, training of trainers, experiences and best practices sharing workshops, immersion internships, as well as scholarships.
The African Secure Communication System “AFSECOM”, is a key tool for implementing the mandate of AFRIPOL. It ensures secure and reliable communication between AFRIPOL and law enforcement agencies of the African union member states, while allowing for the storage and sharing of data to enhance the cooperation between them in combating organized transnational crime, terrorism, and cybercrime. All AFRIPOL liaison offices are equipped with this system.
AFRIPOL maintains strong partnership with African regional police chief organizations as well as with CAERT and CISSA. It also cooperates with numerous international police organizations, such as INTERPOL, CEPOL, FRONTEX, EUROPOL, GCCPOL, and UNODC.
In 2020, INTERPOL and AFRIPOL established the support program for the African Union in relation to AFRIPOL (ISPA), offering both organizations the opportunity to cooperate in key areas, including combating criminal networks in organized crime, terrorism, and cybercrime. Since 2019, a cooperation project with the German Federal Police has been established, aimed at strengthening the capacities of law enforcement agencies in member states in key areas of their activities, particularly in forensic through the AFRIPOL Network of Excellence in Forensic.
Structure
AFRIPOL is made up of the General Assembly, which is the supreme technical and deliberative organ; the Steering Committee, which is the executive body responsible for implementing the General Assembly’s decisions; the Secretariat; and AFRIPOL National Liaison Offices in African Union member states.
Our member states
The AU is made up of 55 member states, representing all the countries on the African continent. AU member states are divided into five geographic regions defined by the OAU in 1976
The following list shows all member states grouped alphabetically by region and their date of joining the AU or its predecessor, the OAU.
