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In the Liberian capital of Monrovia, officers of the National Police force, in collaboration with UN Police, specialise in dealing with high-profile crimes, hostage situations and terrorism., by UNMIL Photo/Christopher Herwig

International terrorism rose to the top of the international agenda in the past year, consuming a greater portion of Security Council attention and world headlines and, most tragically, affecting a larger number of lives than in the past. I found myself having to repeatedly condemn brutal acts perpetrated against innocent civilians by a new generation of transnational terrorist groups. Too often, though, I also found it necessary to recall that failure to address conditions conducive to terrorism produces environments in which extremist groups prove alluring, while responses that are not human rights compliant undermine the very values we hold most dear and can inadvertently fuel radicalization. I continued to advocate counter-terrorism activities that respect all their obligations under international law.

Failure to resolve the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic produced an enabling environment for ISIL and Al-Qaida-affiliated groups. The former has spread outwards from Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic to pose a threat to regional and international peace and security. Meanwhile, in Libya, prolonged chaos and conflict provided fertile ground for violent extremist groups to organize and carry out attacks and local radical groups increasingly pledged allegiance to international terrorist networks. In Somalia, despite continued progress in joint Somali/African Union military operations supported by the United Nations, the Al-Shabaab group poses a growing threat to the wider region, demonstrated by the egregious killing of 147 students at Garissa University College in Kenya on 2 April.

These developments reveal the limits of conventional approaches to counter-terrorism, which have been reactive and focused on security and military operations, and reminded us afresh of the need to focus on pillar I of the  (General Assembly ), which pertains to addressing the conditions conducive to terrorism, as well as the broader challenge of violent extremism at the local, national, regional and global levels. The United Nations took steps in the reporting period to address these new challenges through a number of landmark resolutions, such as Security Council  on foreign terrorist fighters and countering violent extremism; the revitalized working groups of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force; and a newly resourced Counter-Terrorism Centre that is stepping up capacity-building. Work has begun on a plan of action on preventing violent extremism, which I will present to the General Assembly at its seventieth session.

United Nations presences in the field also played a part in tackling the cross-border nature of terrorism, organized crime and corruption. Our regional offices in Central and West Africa have supported Governments and subregional organizations affected by the Boko Haram insurgency in countries of the Lake Chad Basin region. In Central Africa, we supported the development of strategies for counter-terrorism and small arms and light weapon control and, in the light of the role poaching and illicit wildlife trafficking have played in financing the activities of armed groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army, the ex-Séléka in the Central African Republic, and Janjaweed groups from the Sudan, supported the Economic Community of Central African States in developing a regional emergency anti-poaching action plan. We also assisted with the development of a comprehensive regional anti-piracy strategy for the Gulf of Guinea — the region of Africa now most affected by piracy and armed robbery at sea. We also continued to address piracy off the coast of Somalia to achieve the objective “zero ship, zero seafarer” in the hands of Somali pirates. In Tunisia, we supported reforms to strengthen border security to prevent transnational crime along porous borders. In the Asia-Pacific region, United Nations support was provided to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on issues including maritime security, countering violent extremism and transnational crime, while two high-level counter-terrorism political dialogues were held with the European Union.

The United Nations also continued to assist Member States in building their response capacities through the ratification and implementation of international legal instruments. These include the 19 international legal instruments against terrorism, as well as the , which now has 175 States parties. Ten additional countries and territories became parties to the  in the past year. Specialized technical assistance and capacity-building was also available to criminal justice and law enforcement officials on issues related to criminal justice reform in general and in specialized areas of counter-terrorism, including on illicit financial flows, the financing of terrorism and the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes, foreign terrorist fighters, kidnapping for ransom, the recovery of stolen assets and human rights-compliant responses to terrorism.

The connections between drug trafficking, organized crime, corruption and terrorism are becoming more diverse and sophisticated, and fuel insecurity and political instability globally. From Afghanistan to West and Central Africa, and more recently in the Middle East, North Africa and East Africa, these links have become increasingly apparent. The recent tragic events resulting from migrant smuggling in the Mediterranean and Andaman Seas have further highlighted the shared responsibility of States in addressing these issues. The Organization provided evidence-based knowledge on the evolution of drug markets, organized crime dynamics and the nature and magnitude of violence, informing Governments and providing actionable information to assist in designing appropriate and effective responses.

At the global level, flagship reports on the world drug problem, human trafficking, homicide and synthetic drugs helped to shape policy discussions. According to the , each year, some 200,000 people die from the use of drugs and approximately 27 million people in the world suffer from drug use disorders. According to the estimates of the , WHO, the and the , 1.7 million and 6.6 million people who inject drugs are infected with HIV and hepatitis C, respectively. Many more die as a result of the violence that permeates the illicit drug trade. The Organization, including through the United Nations system task force on transnational organized crime and drug trafficking, has continued to support Member States in the lead-up to the special session of the General Assembly on the world drug problem to be held in 2016, including in ensuring that it would consider the issue from a perspective that is grounded in a concern for health and well-being while continuing to provide an effective multilateral space to address the root causes of drug production, trafficking and related transnational organized crime. The session will provide a valuable opportunity for a comprehensive and inclusive exchange of ideas and lessons on what has and has not worked in addressing the world drug problem. The United Nations advocates a rebalancing of the international policy on drugs, to increase the focus on public health, human rights, prevention, treatment and care, and economic, social and cultural measures.

The Organization continued efforts to mainstream issues related to drug abuse prevention, drug dependence treatment, HIV prevention, treatment and care and, in close coordination with WHO, piloted programmes to ensure the availability of pain medication in countries with low levels of access.