Organised Crime, Terror and Insecurity in Africa (OCTA)

The crime-terror nexus has become an increasingly popular term amid warnings that the ‘evil twins’ of criminality and terrorism can erode political, economic and social stability, undermine security and hinder development processes. Yet the majority of research in this area is dominated by donors and national governments and focuses on top-down understandings of the relationship between these two threats. It also focuses narrowly on legally defined organised crime and terrorist groups, while underplaying state actors’ involvement in generating insecurity through corruption, criminality and violence. Such an approach means that the reality on the ground may be overlooked, to the detriment of effective responses.

Our three-year project (2022–2025) explores the interface between organised crime and terrorism in Kenya, Nigeria and Mozambique from the bottom up. It prioritises local experiences and understandings of crime, terrorism and any convergence of the two, adopting a broad approach to examine state and non-state actors’ roles in either providing security or generating insecurity.