The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) works to keep Americans safe at home by countering international crime, illegal drugs, and instability abroad. INL helps countries deliver justice and fairness by strengthening their police, courts, and corrections systems. These efforts reduce the amount of crime and illegal drugs reaching U.S. shores.
Challenges: Although Tanzania has made significant economic and political progress, it continues to face criminal justice and transnational crime challenges. Tanzania is vulnerable to terrorism, trafficking of illegal goods including wildlife and drugs, criminal smuggling, and maritime crimes in its coastal waters. Further, Tanzania is located along major heroin trafficking routes from Southwest Asia. Tanzania’s location, porous borders, and persistent corruption present challenges to drug interdictions.
Goals: Tanzania is a key partner of the United States and an integral member of both eastern and southern African regional organizations. INL supports Tanzanian law enforcement to enhance its drug interdiction capacity, improve its maritime security, and enact justice sector improvements. INL also supports criminal justice actors to counter violent extremism through community policing and to prosecute terrorism cases.
Accomplishments:
- INL is working with Tanzania’s law enforcement authorities to disrupt transnational organized crime, focused currently on countering narcotics trafficking and maritime security. Tanzania benefits from INL’s regional program with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) that supports civilian maritime law enforcement agencies disruption of transnational organized crime at sea through effective patrolling; developing the capacity of the judicial system to pursue legal finish; and increasing regional cooperation.
- INL also works with law enforcement and the judicial sector to counter violent extremism in Tanzania. Under the Partnership for Regional East Africa Counterterrorism, INL supported a Resident Legal Advisor to help law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges improve investigations, prosecutions, and adjudications of criminal cases involving complex transnational crime, including terrorism and money laundering. INL also supports community policing initiatives under the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) Preventing and Responding to Violent Extremism in Tanzania project.