The Basel Institute and Swisspeace are co-financing a research project that looks into the role of anti-corruption agencies in the state building process of fragile nations. The co-financed position is held by Sergio Gemperle who has studied Political Science and Political Geography at the University of Berne and holds a M.A. in International Relations and Development Policy from the Institute for Development and Peace (INEF) of the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

ICAR is collaborating with Streamhouse to develop and deliver a workshop in the context of a law enforcement training programme of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, funded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit.

The workshop will focus on legal, investigative, prosecutorial and operational issues for successfully pursuing whistle-blower and other evidence in mineral fraud cases. The workshop will be delivered to enforcement officials of the region in early May 2013.

As part of a one-year train-the-trainer programme in Egypt, funded by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the ICAR training team implemented a first series of training sessions in Egypt, focusing on the investigation of complex corruption and money laundering cases and techniques for the recovery of stolen assets.

The Counsel of the University of Basel has officially approved the association agreement between the University of Basel and the Basel Institute on Governance. The Basel Institute, along with only a very small group of other independent Swiss organizations, including the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and Swisspeace, is now an official “associated institute” of the University of Basel.

In pursuit of the Basel Institute’s mission to improve the quality of governance globally, and in the context of its related applied research initiatives, the Institute has developed and now offers a new curriculum for a 2 to 3-day workshop on “Quantitative and qualitative Research Methods on Corruption and their Application.”

The workshop is designed to provide working professionals and interested stakeholders with the necessary conceptual and methodological tools to undertake corruption research applicable to a wide variety of topics, contexts and aims.

During the first week of August, as part of the Master in Anti-Corruption Studies (MACS) at the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) in Vienna, Austria, Dr Claudia Baez Camargo, Senior Research Fellow of the Basel Institute, taught two courses, one on "Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods,” and one on "Corruption and Development.”

The participants of this Master programme represented an international group of 31 professionals, mostly officials from their respective countries' anti-corruption agencies.

The Basel Institute and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are partnering in a research project on the potential of community-based participatory approaches for strengthening anti-corruption efforts.

The initiative involves conducting a baseline assessment of context sensitive indicators in the communities targeted by ongoing social accountability initiatives supported by UNDP in the Philippines, Serbia, Ghana and Papua New Guinea.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) of Indonesia successfully launched its radio streaming service on August 17, 2013. This project has been developed over the last 10 months with the support form the Basel Institute on Governance’s Public Governance division and funding from GIZ.

ICAR is currently developing a regional training programme on “Financial Investigations and Recovering Stolen Assets” for a group of practitioners from relevant institutions from selected countries of the MENA region (Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, South Sudan and Yemen).

In the context of USAID’s FOTI Timor Leste programme, ICAR has been requested to assist local counterparts (the Attorney General Office, the Central Bank and the Anti-Corruption Commission) in analyzing and identifying the different stages of investigation and adjudication of money laundering cases; identifying legislative and/or procedural shortcomings that hinder the investigation and adjudication of money laundering in East Timor; and recommending inter-institutional coordination mechanisms for streamlining the investigation and adjudication of such cases.