Objectives

Background

Accounting for over 60% of the global population, the Asia-Pacific region, faces significant challenges against organised crime, corruption, access to justice and rule of law. However, to respond to crime, in-depth understanding is necessary to formulate evidence-based policies for crime prevention.

However, in Asia and the Pacific, none of the five subregions are on track to achieve the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In current SDG 16 progress, where crime is addressed, none of the twelve targets will achieve the 2030 goal; one requires acceleration; three have reversed; and eight do not have enough data for measurement.

To address these issues, in 2019, the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) endorsed the updated Road Map (E/CN.3/2019/19) to support countries production of high-quality data needed to monitor the SDGs, across four pillars:
 
  1. Development of methodological tools
  2. Capacity-building
  3. International data collection and analysis
  4. Strengthening the international framework for the implementation of the Road Map
 
To facilitate the implementation of the Road Map in Asia and the Pacific, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Statistics Korea (KOSTAT) jointly established the UNODC-KOSTAT Centre of Excellence for Statistics on Crime and Criminal Justice in Asia and the Pacific (CoE), in 2019. The CoE in Asia and the Pacific follows the successful model of the UNODC-INEGI Center of Excellence in Statistical Information on Government, Crime, Victimization and Justice in Latin America and the Caribbean, established in 2011.
 

Goals

The CoE endeavours to be the regional leader and partner in supporting national authorities to produce, collect, analyse and disseminate crime and criminal justice statistics. The CoE goals are to:
 
  • Enhance the capacities of Member States to produce accurate, accessible and comparable data in the areas of crime and criminal justice
  • Support Member States to produce and report SDG indicators in the areas of crime and criminal justice (in SDGs 3,5,11,15 and particularly 16)
  • Assist Member States with international data collections 
  • Provide a platform for experience exchange and good practices on methodologies and tools to improve crime and criminal justice statistics
  • Promote and participate in regional partnerships to prioritize crime and criminal justice statistics with national, regional and international actors

Support

To accomplish the above goals, the CoE focuses on providing support across political, institutional and technical levels with emphasis on political prioritization and inter-agency cooperation. 

1. Political/Institutional Support

1.1. Advocacy events
  • High-level engagement to ensure political will for technical assistance 
  • Promote the importance of crime and criminal justice statistics for effective policymaking

1.2. Research and development

  • Develop and enhance national crime statistics systems
  • Conduct innovative methodological research

2. Technical Support

2.1. Trainings

  • Conduct relevant regional and national trainings on:
    • The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 
    • United Nations Survey on Crime trends and the Operation of the Criminal Justice System (UN-CTS)
    • the International Classification of Crimes for Statistical Purposes (ICCS)
    • Crime Victimization Surveys 
    • Corruption Surveys 

2.2. Customized technical assistance

  • Design technical assistance to address Member States requests and needs

3. Knowledge and Information sharing 

  • Organise conferences to share knowledge and to raise awareness of the value of strengthening crime and criminal justice statistics systems
  • Developing a close regional Asia-Pacific crime statistics community

 

UNODC-KOSTAT CoE Brochure