Note to Correspondents

United Nations anti-crime institute to launch civil society partnerships

to support policymakers in security governance

 

The United Nations is bringing together representatives of Member States, international organizations, security experts and civil society representatives to exchange information and share best practices in the field of security governance for a one-day conference in New York on Thursday, 22 January.

Hosted by the Turin‑based United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), the conference, on “Innovative Policies to Advance Security Governance” will showcase the recent activities of the United Nations’ Security Governance/Counter-Terrorism Laboratory.  The Laboratory, launched by UNICRI in May 2008, is a United Nations facility that develops initiatives to face emerging security threats by directly involving not only security and law enforcement agencies, but also a broad cross-section of civil society, local and regional governments, as well as the private sector.

The conference will serve as an opportunity to provide an overview of some of the main activities the Laboratory has developed, including those in the area of radicalization, urban security, the protection of vulnerable targets, and prevention of illicit trafficking of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear material.  During the meeting, UNICRI will also launch two main starting partnerships with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on assisting cities in developing strategies for improving urban security and with the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation on activities for dialogue and innovation with the new UNICRI Centre in Lucca, Italy.

The basic idea of the Laboratory is to use the appeal and convening power of the United Nations to bring together different actors in order to apply creativity and innovation to especially the technical aspects of security governance issues.  The Laboratory is also active in areas not traditionally addressed by the international community, including public-private partnerships on security issues, security during major events and illicit trafficking of precious metals and stones.

Main speakers at the conference will be policymakers, senior officials of international and regional organizations and relevant representatives of academia and the private sector.  The contributors will offer examples of concrete application of the security governance approach to the designing and implementation of national security policies.

The establishment of the Laboratory is part of UNICRI’s expanding activities in the area of security governance.  Recent successes of the Laboratory were the development of an International Permanent Observatory on Security Measures during Major Events and the involvement in security planning during 2008 Beijing Olympics.

UNICRI, based in Turin, Italy, is one of the five global Research and Training Institutes of the United Nations that report to the United Nations Secretary‑General.  According to its mandate, UNICRI assists intergovernmental, governmental and non-governmental organizations in formulating and implementing improved policies in the field of crime prevention, security governance, socio-economic change and development, and the protection of human rights.

As a member of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF), UNICRI has also been actively involved in the Task Force’s ongoing work, including in its efforts to strengthen protection of vulnerable targets.

The meeting will be held in Conference Room 4 and is open to the representatives of all Member States and accredited non-governmental organizations and media.

Press Briefing

UNICRI Director Sandro Calvani and Assistant-Secretary-General for Policy Planning Robert Orr will brief the media on the conference and UNICRI’s activities in security governance at 12:30 p.m. on 22 January in Room S-226.

For more information, please contact:  Francesco Candelari, UNICRI Liaison Representative to the United Nations Secretariat, tel.:  718 757 4357, e‑mail:  candelari@un.org; or Nicola Filizola, UNICRI Communication Officer, tel.:  39 347 5215943; e‑mail:  filizola@unicri.it.

For additional information on UNICRI’s work in security governance, please visit http://www.unicri.it/lab or http://www.unicri-ipo.org.

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For information media • not an official record