New publication! The Political Will to Measure Organised Crime: Why we need it and how to build it

Today see’s publication of the second of two new briefing notes under the SOC ACE research project, Developing government information and accountability systems for combatting serious organised crime: Medellín demonstration project, being led by Professor Christopher Blattman (University of Chicago) with Professor Santiago Tobon (EAFIT Universidad), and Associate Professor Benjamin Lessing (University of Chicago), coordinated by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).

Briefing note 34 offers insights on how novel approaches to measuring less visible organised crime activities such as extortion can be used to inform better diagnosis of the problems associated with organised crime and develop, test and iterate more effective response interventions, which can ultimately be used to build the political will that is essential to tackle the issue. The briefing note identifies three key challenges in measuring less easily observed organised crime activities and demonstrates that despite these challenges, new data from the 2023 SOC ACE-supported city-wide survey on organised crime activities has generated political will at the city level, as well as the regional and national level, with the issue of tackling extortion now being adopted on to the agendas of hopeful Presidential candidates.

Read the new publication here and click through on the project link above to find other related publications.