 Infomation is power Through information sharing, we work together as East Africa Combating Transnation Organized Crimes It is very difficult for one country to be able to work independently to combat crime Interpol is implementing the Interpol East African Community Project in the six East African countries Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda Crime is now not within a border but beyond a border and what affects you affects your neighbour Therefore the police has to work also transnationally to be able to address and deter these criminal activities In the region we have film and trafficking, drug trafficking, trafficking in wildlife trophies, theft of motor vehicles, trafficking in illicit weapons Proceeds of these crimes fund other crimes including terrorism Terrorism has been in this region for a while now Alshabab, ally democratic forces and the Lord's Resistance Army among others have continued to unleash terror and insecurity in the East African region Considering that the criminals work hand in hand so should we so that we have a concerted effort that can equally or even better manage and address these criminal activities The evolution of this operation of criminals changes day by day so that the officers of the police and the police in general need to be able to evolve The Interpol East African Community Project has invested in modernizing the National Central Bureau which are very central to Interpol operations ensuring that there is coordination of Interpol activities among the six countries The modernization comes in form of a computer fixing or installing a state of the art of the modern rotas for communication We believe that this IESC modernization component has made our National Central Bureau to be more productive to provide a conducive working environment for the officers that sit within these NCVs Interpol also is doing a lot in the areas of training capacity building Training we are receiving through Interpol is helping the member states to improve their work and performance in handling the crimes in general All countries have their individual jurisdictions and criminals understand this very well but through Interpol we are able to link you that's why we have a system which is known as I247 I247 is an Interpol system of secure communication that is available to all Interpol member countries and they are able to share information with each other Frontline officials have access to over 124 million records but it means that they are able to stop any unwanted individuals from coming into the country to cause problems within the region Ultimately we believe that with the presence of the I247 communication system we'll increase information sharing we'll enhance regional collaboration and at the end of the day enhance border security within our region As we know criminals work together criminals communicate so I247 enables different police agencies also work together make sure that people's life and their property are secure are protected so we are ready, we are well equipped we have the system, we have the equipment to handle any transnational criminal or national criminal who is participating in these crimes Interpol through the project does a lot to enhance enforcement in the region to work together we are happy with this project because it has enabled enforcement to really fight terrorism and other forms of crime For East Africa I'm seeing a bright future I'm quite optimistic that this region will at the end of the day emerge victorious from the threats that are posed by terrorism and other organized crime as table more secure East African community