ISTANBUL, Turkey – The INTERPOL General Assembly has committed to the largest investment in INTERPOL’s tools and services in more than a decade.
Statutory contributions currently only represent 41 per cent of the overall budget, which for 2021 equates to EUR 60.3 million out of a total of EUR 145.8 million.
The EUR 22 million increase above inflation will be phased in over a three-year period beginning with EUR 5 million in 2022, followed by an additional EUR 7 million increase in 2023 and 10 million in 2024.
Even with the increase, 100 of INTERPOL’s 195 member countries will still pay less than EUR 30,000 for their 2022 statutory contribution.
Demand for INTERPOL’s services continues to surge. Since 2015, INTERPOL has seen the number of records held in its databases grow by 61 per cent. There has also been a 165 per cent increase in global searches in its databases, resulting in an 86 per cent increase in the number of hits in the same period.
However, this significant growth has also placed increasing pressure on the Organization’s core infrastructure, compliance mechanisms, and security frameworks.
The eight areas for investment are:
- Reinforcing analytical capacity
- Identifying victims of child sexual abuse
- Information security
- Disrupting financial crime
- Enhancing the notices and diffusions system
- Establishing a global digital identity for police
- Developing training and support capacity
- Upgrading the corporate backbone
INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock said the budget increase was a clear endorsement of the Organization’s activities by member countries.
“Today, INTERPOL hosts more criminal information, provides access to more police users, receives increasing demands for capabilities, and is present at more critical frontlines than ever before.
“We are the only global information hub for police that delivers clear-cut, tangible law enforcement results on the ground, providing extraordinary value for money to our member countries.
“Statutory contributions are the financial backbone of our Organization and the only way to
ensure sustainability, and we can continue to move forward with our membership’s clear support,” concluded Secretary General Stock.
INTERPOL’s funding is made up of statutory contributions from its membership and voluntary funding, 95 per cent of which comes from partnerships with government agencies.
In the interests of transparency and accountability, all funding details, and the Organization’s financial statements are publicly available. The Organization applies internationally recognized accounting standards and is independently externally audited.
