YAOUNDE, Cameroon - Police authorities from the Central African countries are meeting in Yaoundé to identify ways of increasing co-operation and information sharing in the fight against crime in the region.
Representatives from all eight countries - Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Sao Tomé and Principe - are attending the annual Central African Police Chiefs’ Committee (CAPCCO) conference which also incorporates the regional Heads of INTERPOL National Central Bureaus (NCBs) third annual meeting.
High on the agenda of the five-day conference which ends on January 25 with a meeting of the region’s Interior Ministers are the opening of a new INTERPOL Sub-Regional Bureau in Cameroon for the central Africa region, technical and scientific resources in the sub-region and the expansion of access to I-24/7, INTERPOL’s secure global police communications system beyond the NCBs.
Representing INTERPOL’s General Secretariat, Executive Director of Police Services Jean-Michel Louboutin said the meeting would provide a strong platform to further develop police co-operation in the region.
Since the creation of the Central Africa Police Chiefs Committee in 1997 in Congo, the eight member countries have been working in close co-operation with INTERPOL as part of a strategy to strengthen police effectiveness, fine-tune strategies and seek solutions to the problems of crime and public safety in the Central African sub-region.