MINUTES OF NIOC’S 49th ADVISORY BOARD MEETING
The 49th Advisory Board Meeting of the National Initiative against Organised Crime (NIOC) was held online on Tuesday 12 August 2025. The following AB members attended: Tariq Parvez, Zahid Hussain, Samina Ahmed, Manzoor Ahmed and Jawaid Akhtar. Zubair Habib could not attend as he was in the US.
The NIOC/CGR directorate was represented by Tariq Khosa, Sarmad Saeed, Kaleem Imam, Tariq Javed, Ghulam Ali, Ammar Jaffri, Nawaz Nadeem and Hassan Sardar. Saud Ahmed, Azam Khan and Saroop Ijaz could not attend due to their other commitments.
Two new coordinators from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were introduced to the board. Tariq Javed, a senior retired police officer, will cover the KP province. Ghulam Ali Leghari, the Rule of Law facilitator, based in Quetta, will cover Balochistan province.
The following matters came under discussion:
1) Recent visit of Paddy Ginn, Director of the Global Initiative Against Organized Crime (GI-TOC) to Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore was a great success. There are six members of GI Network in Pakistan, out of about 770 members globally: Shoaib Suddle, Tariq Parvez, Tariq Khosa, Zahid Hussain, Samina Ahmed and Kaleem Imam. Tariq Khosa is on GI’s Global Board. GI has recently launched its regional Central and South Asia Observatory. For Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, the CGR is well positioned to partner with the GI-TOC in undertaking various studies and projects related to transnational organised crime. CGR is a leading civil society organization against TOC in Pakistan. The Strategic Advisory Group for GI-TOC CSA will meet soon to follow up on Paddy Ginn’s visit to Pakistan.
2) CGR is playing a lead role on behalf of the UNTOC Review Process Mechanism in assisting Pakistan’s National Focal Person Dr Ehsan Sadiq, DG AMLA, to represent 25 NGOs and 50 national experts on TOC, during Cluster-1 (Criminalisation and Jurisdiction) review process. CGR continues to represent Pakistan’s civil society in the UNTOC annual Constructive Dialogues since 2022. It has also participated in the UNTOC Conference of Parties held in 2022 and 2024. It has published annual reports on UNTOC Implementation Progress in Pakistan for 2022, 2023, and 2024.
3) UN Crime Congress is going to be held in Abu Dhabi in June 2026. The last congress was held in Kyoto, Japan in 2022. The CGR has applied for in-person participation for the Crime Congress.
4) The UN Pact for the Future conference was held in Nairobi, Kenya in June 2024. The UN Secretary General has established an Implementation Secretariat in New York. There are 5 key areas and 54 action points of the UN Pact for the Future. While the UN Member States are involved in key decision-making, the civil society is also meant to play a key major role in advancing the agenda of the Pact for the Future. The progress will be reviewed in 2028. CGR will get in touch with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other key GOP Stakeholders to collaborate on this latest UN initiative.
5) The 2nd International Day against TOC will be held on 15 November 2025. CGR, in collaboration with the CFHRs and GI-TOC held an online conference on the 1st International Day against TOC in Lahore on 15 November 2024. John Collins, Director Academic Engagement, based in Vienna, participated in person and was one of the keynote speakers. This year on 15 November, the AFIGP is holding its annual get together in Peshawar, hosted by IGP KP. The theme of the conference is Innovative Policing to Combat Organised Crime. CGR/NIOC’s perspectives will be presented in the conference on 15 November 2025 in Peshawar.
6) An online Asia Regional Society Network (NET4U Asia) is also being planned for November 2025. CGR, CFHR and RSIL will be representing Pakistan in the Youth Congress against TOC.
7) CGR/NIOC has undertaken 12 research projects and studies for global donors since 2019. An average of 2 projects per year were undertaken. The research teams, under the strategic advice of NIOC AB President Tariq Parvez, have come up with quality policy briefs, position papers, and research studies. We will maintain the high quality of the selective studies to be undertaken in future. In that regard, an excellent team of young and highly qualified lawyers and researchers of the Centre for Human Rights (CFHR), is adding value to collaborative initiatives being undertaken.
8) Tariq Javed was requested to write a position paper on the pros and cons of the impact of the NMDs (newly merged districts) of erstwhile Fata, on organised crime.