Experts from the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Collective Action (ICCA) were in Kigali, Rwanda on 25-27 January to support the country’s Office of the Ombudsman in developing Collective Action strategies for public-private sector cooperation to tackle corruption.

In the context of the “Strengthening Uganda’s Anti Corruption Response (SUGAR)” project, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), experts from the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) conducted a four- day training workshop on the concepts and process for conducting a Money Laundering/Terrorism Financing (ML/TF) National Risk Assessment (NRA) for representatives from governmental authorities, supervisory authorities and private sector, in Kampala, Uganda, from 19 – 22 January 2016.

The Basel Institute has contributed a case study on successful social accountability to Integrity Action and UNDP's initiative to make available a series of knowledge management tools to promote bottom up demand for good governance.

This case study from the Philippines reflects on the results of the application of an assessment methodology to contextualise social accountability that has been developed by the research team at the Institute's Public Governance Division in collaboration with UNDP.

The report summarises findings from a series of events organised in 2015 by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in cooperation with the Principality of Liechtenstein and the Basel Institute's ICAR. It focuses on challenges of the Court with respect to financial investigation and international cooperation.

In Peru where the Basel Institute recently established its first country office in the context of its more recent public finance management programme funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the Institute’s training experts of the International Center for Asset Recovery (ICAR) conducted two 5-day back-to-back training programmes in financial investigations and asset recovery from 23 May to 4 June 2016.

Experts from ICAR delivered a 4-day training workshop on Operational Analysis to the Peruvian Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in Lima from 6 to 9 June 2016 with the aim to strengthen the FIU's analytical and operational capacities in financial investigations.

The Basel Institute on Governance in partnership with the two Romanian not-for-profit organisations RISE Project and the Journalism Development Network (JDN)’s Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) hosted a third training workshop on Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery – “Follow the money” – on 28–29 April 2016 in Basel, Switzerland. The workshop was organised in the context of a three-year initiative on "Mapping and Visualising Cross-Border Crime” launched in October 2014 and funded by the Swiss-Romanian Cooperation Programme.

Experts from ICAR delivered a 5-day training workshop on Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery for the benefit of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from 11 to 15 April 2016.

In the context of financial crime the recovery of stolen assets is an essential aspect of sanctioning of corruption and it can remedy some of the social harm caused by corruption. These considerations are equally relevant when prosecuting international crimes such as war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

On 27 January, 2016 an Anti-Corruption Court in Nairobi convicted a public officer who worked as an accountant/cashier at the Ministry of Special Programs in Kenya.

The officer was found to have embezzled funds that were allocated for specific donor funded water projects and was convicted on two counts: fraudulent acquisition of public property (count 1) and forgery (count 2) but was acquitted on a charge of abuse of office.