A fundamental priority for law enforcement authorities dealing with financial crime is to recover illegally obtained assets and deny criminals access to the proceeds of their crime. The recovery of illegally obtained assets, however, requires first to successfully trace them.
Throughout 2016, ICAR experts have played a significant role in enhancing Uganda’s capacity to fight money laundering and terrorism financing. Part of this support, provided in the context of the Basel Institute’s involvement in the “Strengthening Uganda’s Anti-Corruption and Accountability Regime” (SUGAR) programme managed by Adam Smith International (ASI), involved assisting the country during the process of identifying and assessing its risk exposure to money laundering and terrorism financing.
To strengthen the capacity of East African anti-corruption agencies to investigate and prosecute international corruption and money laundering, and to enhance regional cooperation in this regard, ICAR led a regional training workshop on Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery.
The Basel Institute on Governance and its International Centre for Collective Action (ICCA) hosted an international conference on anti-corruption Collective Action with almost 200 participants from the private sector, government, international organisations and civil society. The conference took place on October 20-21, 2016 in Basel and was part of the B20 efforts to promote Collective Action in anti-corruption.
The Basel Institute on Governance supported the London based events organiser C5 in the organisation of an anti-corruption conference in Switzerland. The event attracted compliance and ethics professionals from various backgrounds and took place in Zurich from 28 February to 1 March.
Experts from the Public Governance Division visited Peru in early March in support of the Basel Institute’s SECO-funded programme “Programa GFP Subnacional”. By working with Peruvian regional and municipal governments to strengthen public finance management processes, this programme contributes to improve the quality of public services and promotes the ability of local government actors to prevent, detect and investigate acts of corruption.
The beginning of this year marked a growing interest in ICAR’s Train-the-Trainer programme in financial investigation and asset recovery with launches in Romania and Tanzania. The TTT programme comprises 4 to 5 successive training workshops, which are delivered over a period of several months. Potential local trainers are selected and trained to deliver similar workshops to their peers in the future, thus ensuring the sustainability of the project.
On 22 March 2017, the Basel Institute on Governance and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) have entered into an agreement whereby ICAR will assist NABU in strengthening their capacities to conduct complex investigations into cases of grand corruption, money laundering and related financial crimes. The support involves both assistance in on-going investigations as well as providing ICAR’s signature training.
The Basel Institute, one of the founding members of the Board of the World Economic Forum Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI), participated in this year’s Spring meeting of the World Economic Forum Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (WEF PACI). The event focused on sharing views on how to rebuild trust and integrity in business and government. PACI’s work is driven by the active participation of its community including the PACI Vanguard Board. Key takeaways included:
Experts of the Basel Institute developed a specialised training on governance of state owned enterprises, anti-corruption prevention and Collective Action for a group of government officials from Uzbekistan.
The programme, which was delivered at the Basel Institute's headquarters in May, was tailored to the requirements of the participants and was based on a combination of theory and best practices with case examples and practical exercises. The participation of a range of internal and external speakers ensured lively exchanges and discussion on specific issues.