Iker Lekuona joined the Basel Institute on Governance as Head of Programmes for the International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) in May 2019. He is a governance and anti-corruption specialist with over 10 years of experience at strategic, management, programme and policy levels for multilateral, civil society and private sector organisations. 

As Head of Governance and Stability at the international development firm Adam Smith International (ASI), he provided strategic management for multi-year, multi-component programmes worth USD 30 million across Sub-Saharan Africa. This included delivering two of the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) most complex and impactful anti-corruption programmes: Strengthening Uganda’s Anti-Corruption Response Technical Advisory Facility (SUGAR TAF) and Strengthening Action Against Corruption (STAAC) in Ghana, both of which were A+ rated. 

Prior to joining ASI, Iker was a Governance Specialist for the World Bank in Uganda, where he contributed to designing and delivering a portfolio of supply- and demand-side governance programmes. These included coordinating the evaluation of the Government of Uganda’s cross-sectoral performance for a USD 250m-per-year, multi-donor budget support operation; supporting the implementation of the anti-corruption component of the country’s largest social protection programme; and providing technical assistance to a civil society coalition monitoring government contracts in the education, health and road sectors. 

Moreover, Iker created and led the strategic research and capacity building departments of PODER, a non-governmental organisation whose goal is to improve corporate transparency and accountability in Latin America. 

Iker holds an MA in Social Sciences – International Relations and Political Theory – from the University of Chicago, a Graduate Minor in Human Rights from the University of Minnesota, and a BA in English from the University of Deusto.