Regional Security and Justice Summit
Held in Buenos Aires on September 8 and 9, the Regional Security and Justice Summit will convene ministers and key stakeholders to address cross-border security and transnational organized crime.
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Alliance for Security, Justice, and Development
A regional platform for dialogue, cooperation, knowledge exchange and resource mobilization to prevent and respond to organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean
| A holistic initiative targeted at fostering dialogue, cooperation and collective action to strengthen institutions, prevent community harm, and curb the rapid expansion, growth and influence of organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean |
Protecting the Most Vulnerable Populations and Communities
Mitigating risk factors related to criminal violence perpetrated by organized groups, including youth recruitment, and reducing the effects of this violence on the most vulnerable populations and communities
Strengthening Security and Justice Institutions
Enhancing institutional resilience across the security and justice system, as well as in other strategic sectors, against organized crime to improve performance, efficiency and effectiveness in responding to organized crime
Disrupting Financial Flows and Curbing Illicit Markets
Weakening the power and influence of organized crime groups through actions and initiatives targeted at reducing the size of the illicit market and restraining their operational capacity and ability to use the economic profits derived from illegal markets
Facilitate the Generation of Knowledge and Shared Diagnostics
The Alliance will foster collaboration and facilitate generation and sharing of knowledge on the scale, dynamics, causes and developmental impacts of criminal violence in the region, emphasizing the role of organized crime.
Foster Innovation and Bring Evidence-Based Solutions to Scale
The Alliance will support the development, testing and evaluation of innovative solutions, as well as the scaling-up of successful, evidence-based interventions tailored to prevent and address organized crime, while considering the specific context of each community, country or subregion.
Strengthen Institutional Capacity and Foster Collective Learning
The Alliance will support high-quality and specialized training programs and workshops and will provide technical assistance to strengthen the skills and knowledge needed to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of the policies targeted at preventing and responding to organized crime.
Promote Collaboration and Amplify Regional Expertise
The Alliance will facilitate regular technical and policy-based forums, expert consultations and working groups to promote dialogue, knowledge exchange, collaboration and cooperation among diverse stakeholders within the region and beyond by fostering partnerships among governments, multilateral organizations, civil society and others.
Declaration of Barbados
Regional Footprint
Established in December 2024 with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Alliance is composed of and led by 22 borrowing member countries of the Bank, which together account for 90% of the region's population, 95% of LAC’s GDP, and 92% of the counts of homicide that take place in the region every year.
Regional Summit on Security and Justice
The Regional Summit on Security and Justice will be held in Buenos Aires on September 8 and 9. Latin America and the Caribbean face complex challenges in a context marked by high rates of lethal violence, transnational illicit economies, and the growing sophistication of organized crime. In this scenario, the Summit will bring together justice and security ministers from the Alliance member countries, along with representatives from non-regional IDB countries, strategic partners, and key sector stakeholders. The goal is to foster dialogue, exchange experiences, strengthen alliances, and define a joint work plan through 2026.
The central theme of the meeting will be cross-border security in the face of transnational organized crime. Topics will include effective criminal prosecution, strengthening institutional capacities, and cross-border cooperation, with a view to building more coordinated and comprehensive responses to the region’s shared challenges.
Watch the streaming of the public agenda on September 8 live from Buenos Aires!
At the Regional Security and Justice Summit, the Inter-American Development Bank presented a new phase of the Alliance for Security, Justice, and Development, with a historic increase in the scale of its operations.
WASHINGTON – The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a $400 million loan to Ecuador to strengthen the country’s institutional capacity to prevent and tackle criminal violence and illicit financial flows. This programmatic policy-based loan addresses growing insecurity in a country...
• The Alliance will work on three pillars: protecting vulnerable populations, strengthening security and justice institutions, and reducing illicit markets and financial flows.• This unprecedented initiative includes governments, multilateral organizations, civil society, and other interested...
1. What is the Alliance?
The Alliance for Security, Justice, and Development is the result of governments and institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean coming together in Bridgetown, Barbados, in December, 2024 to establish this shared regional initiative. The founding declaration of the Alliance establishes its objective: to promote evidence-based regional, subregional, and national actions and public policies to strengthen institutions, prevent community harms including youth recruitment, and mobilize resources to address and provide coordinated responses to the rapid expansion, growth and influence of organized crime in our nations.
The Alliance unites governments, multilateral organizations, and civil society around the efforts necessary to achieve this shared objective.
2. What motivated the creation of the Alliance?
Citizen Security is a critical determinant of the well-being and the socioeconomic development of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) nations. In specific, organized crime groups impose high social, institutional, and economic costs across LAC countries. The shared threat that organized crime represents for all LAC countries, and its transnational nature, demands a commensurate regional response. The Alliance was created to foster and facilitate the development of strategic regional products to address the threat of organized crime and mitigate its social, institutional, and economic costs in a more effective manner.
3. Who is eligible to join the Alliance?
The Alliance is formed by a network of countries and partner institutions who have come together, under the framework of the Alliance, to join efforts and produce regional public goods to increase institutional resilience against organized crime groups and the violence associated with them in Latin America and the Caribbean. We encourage other institutions to join us at the IDB in the effort to provide technical and financial support to advance the Alliance's lines of action and products. Contact us if your organization is interested in becoming part of this joint effort!
4. What type of support does the Alliance provide to its members?
The Alliance mobilizes human, technical, technological, and financial resources to provide a regional institutional response to the threat posed by organized crime, as well as to mitigate its causes and consequences. This response involves generating three types of regional products:
- Knowledge Products, Tools, and Methodologies: Practical and rigorous knowledge about the most challenging problems and the most promising solutions and interventions, and generation of knowledge-based resources (guides, tools, and methodologies) to facilitate evidence-informed policy decision-making.
- Inter-institutional Exchange and Coordination Mechanisms: Effective coordination mechanisms, both at national and transnational levels, that overcome the fragmentation that organized crime groups exploit to advance their interests.
- Policy innovations and Pilot Interventions: Scalable policy innovations that can match the ingenuity and adaptability of organized crime groups with high impact and flexible solutions.
5. What is the Alliance’s governance structure?
The Alliance is organized and operates based on the following governance structure:
- Members: The Alliance is made up of LAC Ministers of Security and Ministers of Justice, who may appoint a technical focal point.
- Technical Secretariat: The IDB provides technical, strategic, and coordination support to the Alliance related to the planning and implementation of the work and technical meetings with the countries within the framework of its objectives, acting as liaison.
- Pro-Tempore Presidency: A member country of the Alliance may assume the pro-tempore presidency for 12 months.
- Technical Working Groups: Composed of the members, these working groups are established for each of the three objectives of the Alliance. The groups may address the issues prioritized by the Ministries, define and implement a work plan, and provide progress reports. The groups will be led by one or two countries.
- Steering Committee: A steering committee established as the body for strategic guidance of the Alliance, with the support of the technical secretariat. The committee may be composed of representatives of the country that assumes the Pro Tempore Presidency and the leading countries of each of the Technical Working Groups.
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