Africa's shifting role in the global drug trade

Recent discoveries of meth labs suggest parts of Africa are moving beyond drug transit and becoming sites of synthetic drug production. But recent drug seizures and laboratory discoveries show that illicit drugs are no longer only passing through African countries — they are increasingly being manufactured there.

Recent discoveries of methamphetamine laboratories in countries such as Nigeria , South Africa , Kenya and Mozambique have fueled concerns that Africa is becoming a significant production hub for synthetic drugs. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), synthetic drug production increasingly involves transnational criminal networks and clandestine laboratories capable of supplying both local and international markets.

The debate gained new urgency this year after Nigeria's National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) dismantled what the agency described as the largest clandestine methamphetamine laboratory ever uncovered in the country.