2024 was a challenging year for the Basel Institute on Governance, marked by the tragic passing of our Managing Director Gretta Fenner in April. But we have continued building on her legacy and, in early 2025, welcomed our new Executive Director Betsy Andersen to lead us into the future.

In his foreword to our 2024 Annual Report, the Basel Institute's President Peter Maurer reflects on how our teams have worked with partners and allies to achieve tangible progress against corruption with the ultimate goal of a more peaceful, just and sustainable world:

2024 was profoundly overshadowed by the sudden and tragic loss of our Managing Director, Gretta Fenner, who led the Basel Institute for nearly two decades. Under her dedicated and inspirational leadership, the Institute has become what it still exemplifies today: a distinguished, hands-on centre of expertise committed to advancing the global fight against corruption and striving to create a more peaceful, secure and sustainable world.

After Gretta’s passing, I temporarily stepped in to guide the organisation and the team during a transition period whilst a new leadership was sought. This unexpected task gave me an even deeper understanding and appreciation of the Basel Institute’s distinctively multi-disciplinary, adaptable and impactful approach – a method that is essential for tackling corruption in today’s complex and shifting political landscapes. It also confirmed the Institute’s resilience in an increasingly volatile and fragmented world.

The Institute’s strength lies first and foremost in our skilled global team and in our ability to provide independent, expert support to stakeholders across multiple sectors and regions. We also benefit from the unwavering and generous commitment of our donors and a broad network of partners, from the local grass roots to the international community.

In 2024 these factors were especially visible in the context of our engagement in Ukraine. Despite enormous challenges, Ukraine’s government and society have kept anti-corruption efforts in focus and on track. We are proud to support them: from helping prevent corruption in infrastructure, transport and forestry, to strengthening private-sector integrity in reconstruction projects, to assisting with transnational asset recovery. This kind of holistic engagement is both challenging and vital for Ukraine’s security, as well as Europe’s.

Across more than 30 country programmes and projects, 2024 brought significant successes. In these pages you’ll read about, for example:

• How we contributed to the confiscation or return of over CHF 50 million in precedent-setting asset recovery cases, and new breakthroughs in targeting the financial aspects of environmental crimes.
• Steps towards preventing corruption in timber value chains, identifying red flags for corruption at EU borders and in public procurement processes, and shining a light on sexual corruption risks faced by students.
• Our compliance assistance to safeguard investments in critical infrastructure projects and how we foster high-level support for anti-corruption Collective Action to strengthen business integrity.
• In Peru, how citizens are seeing real results from better public finance management: infrastructure delivered on time and vital services like vaccines and schoolbooks reaching those who need them.

Each success, and many others not mentioned here, brings us closer to a better governed and safer world.

Empowering people is at the heart of everything we do. Our eLearning courses now reach over 53,000 learners worldwide. More than 800 anti-corruption and conservation practitioners collaborate in one of several communities of practice. And new postgraduate programmes with the University of Basel will help build the next generation of anti-corruption and asset recovery leaders.

Anti-corruption work has always faced resistance, from entrenched interests to institutional backsliding. At the Basel Institute, we are well prepared to defend values of integrity, transparency and accountability.

But in the face of increasing headwinds in the geopolitical environment, we can only continue to succeed by building coalitions, breaking silos and collectively innovating to address corruption’s harmful role in major global challenges – challenges like the energy transition, healthcare and security, as well as poverty and organised crime.

This is the charge that our new Executive Director, Elizabeth “Betsy” Andersen now leads. Appointed by the Board in late 2024 following a rigorous selection process, Betsy brings deep legal expertise, strategic vision, run-with-it motivation and a wealth of leadership experience in the non‑profit sector.

On behalf of the Board, I warmly welcome her, convinced that her steady hand will help us guide the Institute as we chart and navigate the future.

View the 2024 Annual Report of the Basel Institute on Governance.