Abstract: The West African region has been identified as a major transit point for the transshipment of illicit drugs from Latin and South America into Europe. Among the countries in West Africa used mostly as a transit route into Europe is Ghana to the south and Guinea-Bissau to the North. The UNODC as the global leader in fighting the menace of illicit drug trade with field offices across the world including the West African region have succeeded in the bringing this drug menace under the control in some parts of the region such as Ghana and have failed in other parts such as Guinea-Bissau. This paper employed the Neo Elites paradigm to examine and explain why the UNODC was able to record success stories with their interventions with some governments and failed with the others in the West African region. National Elites can either promote a stable political regime or cause a disruption in the social and political systems of a country depending on whether they are consensually unified national elites or ‘disunified’ national elites. This study brings to bare how domestic factors were the main determinants of the successes and the failures recorded so far in the fight against drug trade.
Keywords: Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, UNODC, Drug Trafficking, Neo Elite theory, West Africa.
Title: UNODC’s Fight against Drug Trafficking in West Africa: A Comparative Case Study of Ghana and Guinea-Bissau
Author: Dennis Senam Amable
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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