Latin America and Europe share information to fight against COVID-19

The European Union programme, EL PAcCTO, has launched a communication channel between Europe and Latin America to share information about the health crisis. The idea is for security forces, courts and prison systems to be able to communicate and share experiences, errors and successes regarding COVID-19 management efforts in Latin America and Europe.

The channel, called Canal COVID, includes the 17 Latin American countries with which EL PAcCTO works and Spain, France, Italy and Portugal in Europe. This is the first initiative of its kind to promote coordination, cooperation and pandemic prevention in both regions.

The pandemic reached Europe before Latin America which is why EL PAcCTO  believes it is essential to share lessons learned by organisations in both regions.

The channel will cover topics such as cyber crime, the situation in prisons and coordination in the field of justice. The security forces of both regions are already sharing information and lessons learned. A Civil Guard colonel will coordinate the cyber crime section of the channel. He is already in contact with colleagues in several Latin American countries.

The EL PAcCTO prison systems team has held a virtual meeting with experts from the Italian Prison Administration department and representatives of the COVID Channel from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Paraguay. At this first meeting, challenges facing prisons in Latin America and Europe due to the health crisis were analysed.

And with regard to justice systems, experts coordinating the COVID Channel met to establish the strategy to be followed with the aim of supporting Latin American justice institutions. The programme will act in coordination to support the courts, public ministries and the ministries of justice. The objective is to strengthen existing international mechanisms to help overcome the initial phase of the epidemic.

 EL PAcCTO

This international cooperation programme is financed by the European Union. Its main objective is to promote citizen security and the rule of law in Latin America through a more effective fight against organised transnational crime.

It is the first time that a European regional programme has worked throughout the criminal chain to strengthen cooperation through three components: police cooperation, cooperation between the courts and prison systems and it has five cross-cutting themes: cyber crime, corruption, human rights, gender, and money laundering.

The International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies, FIIAPP, (Spain) and Expertise France (France) are responsible for implementing the programme with the support of IILA (Italy) and Camões (Portugal).