INTERPOL calls for billion-Euro global fund to address modern-day security challenges through its Global Security Initiative

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – INTERPOL today launched its Global Security Initiative (GSI) at the 77th General Assembly when delegates voted to adopt the initiative as the organization’s platform for 21st century global policing through strategic global partnerships.

At the meeting, INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble urged governments and the private sector alike to embrace its ideals and to finance a new approach to international crime fighting by translating words into action and endow the GSI fund with one billion Euros.

He said the organization was uniquely placed to address today’s security challenges and that the role of international policing stood at a crossroads, with the path to a safer world requiring both a radical redefinition of the role of international law enforcement and the funding to support it.

Secretary General Noble said that international security comprised much more than traditional issues relating to military and political stability:

“It also involves the stability of the global economy, overcoming poverty, economic security and developing a dialogue between civilizations,” he said. “Law enforcement is continually challenged in a more complex and interdependent world to devise innovative ways to protect our citizens and disrupt the criminals that threaten our collective security."

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in his address to the General Assembly – the first by a head of government since 1995 – earlier praised INTERPOL and its global network across 187 member countries in fighting transnational crime, as he called for international police co-operation with the world’s largest police organization. 

Secretary General Noble said that INTERPOL was more relevant than ever because it had institutionalized a culture of innovation among law enforcement professionals in response to constant changes in the policing landscape. In this respect, he said INTERPOL’s Global Security Initiative for the 21st century would provide ‘an essential framework’ for a comprehensive strategy that would break down the traditional barriers that had prevented meaningful and sustained partnerships between governments, international organizations and the private sector, and that it would shape dialogue on how best to address regional and global security challenges.

“Cyber security, transnational threats, drug and human trafficking, terrorist financing – these are problems that transcend borders and cannot be easily addressed unless we take a global approach to fighting them,” Mr Noble said.

“Global security is a multi billion-dollar problem which cannot be solved without the full commitment to law enforcement by governments,” he said. “For far too long policing has been the poor relation of security, but we can begin to address this problem by instituting a global culture in which, for example, for every Euro that is given to foreign aid, one cent is given to a global law enforcement fund.”

The concept of strategic global partnerships – central to the GSI – has already been put into practice by INTERPOL, with the organization having entered into a variety of partnerships with the United Nations, the European Union and the private sector. Earlier this year INTERPOL launched its OASIS (Operational Assistance, Services and Infrastructure Support) project in Africa to implement and enhance policing projects throughout the region, after Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs pledged funding of more than 20 million Euros over the next four years to provide capacity-building, operational assistance and infrastructure support.