The Zanzibar Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Authority (ZAECA) and Basel Institute on Governance have today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to support Zanzibar’s fight against corruption.

The agreement covers a suite of capacity building and mentoring interventions focused on financial investigations, international cooperation to gather information and evidence to prosecute cases of corruption and related financial crimes, and the recovery of stolen assets.

Together, these will equip ZAECA officers with the fundamental skills and emerging techniques they need to investigate and prosecute corruption cases, trace illicitly obtained assets both domestically and internationally, and launch efforts to recover them for the benefit of the people of Zanzibar and Tanzania more broadly.

The Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) will provide the technical assistance and capacity building foreseen under the MoU with financial support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The new programme will benefit from ICAR’s strong presence in the East Africa region, with an existing network of field offices and embedded experts as well as strong relationships with key anti-corruption and related law enforcement agencies.