ORGANIZED CRIME AND INSTABILITY DYNAMICS - Mapping illicit hubs in West Africa

The GI-TOC also thanks members of the Technical Reference Group for their contributions to the development of the Illicit Economies and Instability Monitor (IEIM), and to the participants in the verification workshops of the mapping, and IEIM results. [...] The crime–conflict links The majority of indicators (14) within each of the are at the centre of the characteristics the IEIM IEIM components are based on expert assessment, seeks to assess, and as such, this component has the with the remaining indicators scored according to highest weighting of the three IEIM components. [...] Moreover, the IEIM is an innova- one major challenge to both the identification of the tive metric that fills a major gap in the literature, illicit hubs in the first instance and the subsequent assessing the links between crime and conflict in one development of the IEIM is accurately analyzing the single framework. [...] The weighting approach taken static, and the changing nature of the dynamics in the development of the IEIM is based on concep- studied in the context of this research are such that tual importance of the various dimensions that make elements of the mapped data may become inaccu- up the monitor, as per the GI-TOC’s foundational rate with time. [...] 32 ORGANIZED CRIME AND INSTABILITY DYNAMICS • MAPPING ILLICIT HUBS IN WEST AFRICA The prominence of the illicit oil trade along the coast The Port of Cotonou is a good example of a seaport reflects the importance of the market in the southern that plays an important role in transnational illicit coastal states of Nigeria, particularly in the Ni.