The 84th General Assembly of Interpol, the world’s largest international police organisation starts in Kigali today.

The four-day meeting has attracted more than 1000 delegates including heads and representatives of law enforcement institutions and agencies from 190 member countries of Interpol. The theme of the meeting is INTERPOL 2020: Policing Global Threats in a Dynamic Environment.

This year’s theme is timely because modern crime has taken probably the most sophisticated face in the history of policing. Today’s changing nature of crime and the environment in which it is committed requires the respective police institutions across the world to work more closely to avert the threat.

Criminals are more sophisticated than ever before, and usually operate in more than one country under well organised syndicates especially for crimes like drug and human trafficking.

It is no longer a case of policing your boundaries, and think that you are safe as a country.

The sophisticated nature of crime in the 21st century means that no country is an island when it comes to managing security issues. It means that all countries have to network and work closely to fight and prevent crime across the globe.

There is need of regular review of current policing and security issues, including cross-border challenges faced by police today such as terrorism, the organised criminal groups behind drug and human trafficking, and the different facets of cyber crime.

Experience has showed that close cooperation between countries within the East African Community has registered noticeable achievements in detecting and preventing crime across borders.

Close cooperation within the region has for example led to interception of drug and human traffickers and other criminals like car thieves who steal from one country and move the car to another country.

From this experience, it is clear that global cooperation will go a long way in stamping out crime across the world.The conference should draw lessons from the current achievements and challenges to come up with recommendations that will make policing compliant with the emerging global dynamics in crime.