Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo9, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. Presentations of the organized crime situation in the region were made and three workshops were held addressing ‘the present structure of organized crime’, ‘the two way process (co-operation)’; and ‘financial investigations’. The EU tool of joint investigation teams, to be introduced in South-Eastern Europe, was discussed and co-operation gaps for these countries were identified. The main outcome of the conference was the shared commitment by participants to improve co-operation and the exchange of information within the region. On 30 January, the TNTD/SPMU’s transnational organized crime expertise was requested at an expert roundtable organized by the International Peace Institute (IPI) to discuss the draft of a forthcoming IPI report, which was part of an ongoing “Peace without Crime” project: ‘The Elephant in the Room: How Can Peace Operations Deal with Organized Crime?’ IPI has been examining the impact of organized crime on peace operations and crime-related mandates. Organized crime has been determined as a threat to peace and development in almost every environment where the United Nations has been operating peace operations. The report contains a number of recommendations on how the international community may more effectively deal with the threat to stability and security posed by transnational organized crime. On 19-20 February, the TNTD/SPMU attended the UNODC “Law Enforcement Advisors Meeting” in Vienna, where law enforcement advisers from several UNODC regions, INTERPOL, the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and a number of national donors of UNODC programmes were present. The purpose of the meeting was to explore synergies needed to enable UNODC to effectively deliver its technical assistance programmes. In addition, the meeting served to brainstorm on issues such as the UNODC approach to law enforcement capacity building assistance; how UNODC works to establish common standards; and how UNODC could work in partnership in programme implementation to spread uniformity in standards and practice. Conclusions from the discussions pointed to the need for having common data bases for project-related information; uniformed standard programmes; possible joint fund raising initiatives; as well as the need for the development of joint action plans, and regular monthly co-ordination meetings between the OSCE and UNODC in Vienna. On 11-12 April, the TNTD/SPMU participated in the “Annual Regional SEE Ministerial Conference on Combating Organized Crime and Corruption and Enhancing Judicial Cooperation in the SEE Region” in Belgrade. The Unit also facilitated the contribution of an expert speaker. Taking into account the growing trend in the South-Eastern European region to build on cross-border co-operation to tackle serious organized crime by police and prosecutors, topics such as anti-corruption, financial investigations and cross-border cooperation between prosecution and police were discussed. Draft recommendations addressed mutual legal assistance, the development of a regional convention for crossborder recognition of judicial conclusions, and the enforcement of civil and commercial decisions. On 15 May, the TNTD/SPMU held a co-ordination meeting with the Organized Crime Branch of UNODC. Discussions focused mainly on the preparations for the up-coming OSCE Conference on Illicit Drugs. In a further meeting, the TNTD discussed with staff of UNODC’s Laboratory & Scientific Section, Research and Trend Analysis Branch, Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs, a possible joint training for forensic experts from Central Asia to be delivered in the UNODC laboratory. On 3-4 November, the TNTD/SPMU participated in an international expert seminar on 9 28 All references to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population, in this text should be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244.