Director General/Executive Director
Minister Kneissl,
OSCE Secretary General,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Many thanks to Austria for holding this conference on this highly relevant topic during your chairmanship of the OSCE Asian Partnership.
Austria has been a longstanding champion and leader of multilateralism. The UN family in Vienna has benefitted greatly from Austria's engagement to promote peace and security, your commitment to human rights and sustainable development, and your support to the United Nations.
Next year, we are marking the 40th anniversary of the Vienna International Centre. Austria is an outstanding host country. I think we can be proud of our joint efforts over these decades.
Ladies and gentlemen,
How we can promote effective multilateralism in a globalized world is a critical question facing the international community today.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has identified a lack of trust as a key global challenge - trust between citizens and their governments, as well as between governments and peoples.
Related to this is a crisis of confidence in the ability of multilateral institutions to forge common solutions.
In response, the Secretary-General has initiated a thorough UN-wide reform process, to adapt peace and security strategies and promote prevention, to counter the threat of terrorism, as well as revamp the UN development system for greater effectiveness.
These ambitious proposals are aimed at improving our collective responses, at a challenging time and in acknowledgement of a basic truth: global problems need global solutions.
Prevention relies on shared responsibility. We cannot build resilience and address vulnerabilities without partnerships.
This is very evident in the areas UNODC addresses as part of its mandates, to support implementation of the UN conventions on drugs, crime and corruption, the global counter-terrorism instruments, and UN standards and norms on crime prevention and criminal justice.
This week, on the other side of the Danube, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice is holding its annual session.
We had the honour of having the Secretary-General and Minister Kneissl join us on the opening day on Monday.
The thematic discussion of this year is on cybercrime.
This is a perfect example of the borderless threats we are facing in a globalized world, whether we are in Europe or Asia or any other region.
UNODC is working in more than fifty countries to improve law enforcement capacities to prevent and counter cybercrime, and I am optimistic that this session of the Commission will help to further reinforce international cooperation against this threat.
The Crime Commission has also taken a number of concrete steps in supporting implementation of Agenda 2030, highlighting the clear links between criminal justice responses and the broader objectives of the UN, like the SDGs.
Moreover, "Advancing crime prevention, criminal justice and the rule of law: towards the achievement of the 2030 Agenda" is the theme of the Fourteenth Crime Congress, to be hosted by Japan in 2020.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Austria has been a committed partner to UNODC's global efforts to address challenges of drugs, crime, corruption and terrorism.
In Asia, we are working closely with the OSCE, INTERPOL, the SCO, ASEAN and other regional organizations and actors, to connect responses to security challenges through our regional, inter-regional and global initiatives, including Networking the Networks.
This is an incredibly dynamic region experiencing rapid economic growth and rapid regional integration.
The ASEAN countries are ever more linked with the rest of Asia and the global community, including Europe.
While increased connectivity provides many benefits, it has also given rise to new problems.
This includes synthetic drugs, in particular methamphetamine; timber and wildlife trafficking; and changing patterns of migrant smuggling and human trafficking.
Organized crime money flows in the region are conservatively estimated at nearly 100 billion dollar per year.
In some respects the forces of integration have moved faster that the systems to protect borders, making it difficult for countries to get ahead of these problems. Here again the need for collective responses is very clear.
Preventing and stopping human trafficking is an area where we work closely with the OSCE. With its multidimensional, comprehensive security concept and broad geographical reach, the OSCE represents an important regional partner for UNODC.
We recently convened a first meeting of heads of agencies of the UN's main inter-agency mechanism focused on trafficking in persons, the now 23-member ICAT. OSCE has long taken part in this mechanism and is now a full member.
I am looking forward to working with the OSCE Special Representative, Madina Jarbussynova, and all our ICAT members to keep building on this momentum, including through the Blue Heart Campaign and the UN Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking.
Excellencies,
Allow me to conclude by thanking Austria and the OSCE once again.
UNODC remains committed to working with you to further enhance regional and multilateral cooperation to secure prosperity and promote peace.
Thank you.