Browsing by Author "Costa, Jacopo"

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    Curbing wildlife trafficking in Uganda: lessons for practitioners
    (Basel Institute on Governance, 2020) Kassa, Saba; Costa, Jacopo; Lugolobi, Robert; Camargo, Claudia Baez
    This policy brief summarizes the main findings from extensive field research on the drivers, facilitators and strategies of wildlife trafficking in Uganda. The research shows that individuals engaging in the first stages of the trading route are driven predominantly by aspirations of wealth to overcome socio-economic hardships. This is reinforced by stereotypes that depict wildlife trade as benign and legitimate. The trafficking is also facilitated by weak governance systems that generate high levels of corruption and impunity. In such a context, opportunistic strategies sustain the operations of organized transnational wildlife trafficking networks, not least because of the availability of a ready pool of accomplices who can be co-opted to facilitate the effective consolidation, concealment and corrupt cover of high volumes of wildlife products. Policymakers who wish to reduce the attractiveness of Uganda for organized wildlife trafficking networks are advised to consider these factors when designing their interventions.
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    It takes a network to defeat a network: What Collective Action practitioners can learn from research into corrupt networks
    (Basel Institute on Governance, 2021) Camargo, Claudia Baez; Costa, Jacopo; Hans, Vanessa; Koechlin, Lucy; Wannenwetsch, Scarlet
    This Policy Brief distils recommendations for Collective Action practitioners based on empirical insights on certain forms of corruption involving private-sector actors. Field research carried out in Tanzania and Uganda produced detailed case studies that show how informal networks link private and public sector actors to pursue common illicit goals (Baez Camargo et al, 2021), such as gaining an unfair business advantage, avoiding a sanction, decreasing taxes owed or jumping the queue at the point of delivery of public services. Corruption, most often bribery, is the currency that works to cement and nurture those networks. This Policy Brief is based on that research and a series of in-depth interviews with Collective Action practitioners working in Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
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    Reducing the social acceptability of wildlife trafficking through behavior change interventions
    (Basel Institute on Governance, 2021) Kassa, Saba; Costa, Jacopo; Lugolobi, Robert; Camargo, Claudia Baez
    Behavior change interventions aimed at reducing the social acceptability of wildlife trafficking are an important part of efforts to prevent wildlife crime. This policy brief summarizes lessons learned about how to develop and frame effective messages in the context of these interventions, based on field work conducted in Uganda. A key first step is to narrowly identify the right target audience. While a general public awareness campaign may have its merits, it may be more effective to focus on those identified as most vulnerable to participating in wildlife trafficking, namely young men, those that live around wildlife trafficking hotspots and those involved in trade