[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":381},["ShallowReactive",2],{"news-the-changing-face-of-corruption-and-security-munich-security-conference-2024-2588":3,"news-the-changing-face-of-corruption-and-security-munich-security-conference-2024-2588-similar":121,"i-heroicons:arrow-left-20-solid":376},[4],{"id":5,"status":6,"date_created":7,"date_updated":8,"title":9,"type":10,"body":11,"date":12,"topic":13,"slug":15,"activity":16,"nid":19,"topics":20,"activities":21,"programme":22,"area":22,"websites":23,"language":22,"image":25,"translation_of":22,"countries":36,"tags":100,"authors":117,"images":118,"translations":119,"content":120},10421,"published","2024-02-21T11:01:31.000Z","2025-08-31T23:14:40.000Z","The changing face of corruption and security: Munich Security Conference 2024","Blog","Corruption was on the main programme of the [Munich Security Conference](https:\u002F\u002Fsecurityconference.org\u002Fen\u002F) on 16–18 February 2024 for the first time.\n\nGretta Fenner, Managing Director of the Basel Institute on Governance, moderated a panel discussion featuring Bernardo Arévalo, President of Guatemala, Nikolai Denkov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Ketakandriana (Ke) Rafitoson, Vice Chair of Transparency International and Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator and Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Budget.\n\nThe main challenge in Gretta Fenner’s closing words, referring to the theme of this year’s [conference report “Lose-Lose](https:\u002F\u002Fsecurityconference.org\u002Fpublikationen\u002Fmunich-security-report-2024\u002F)”:\n\n> _“If we do not understand, acknowledge and then act accordingly in relation to the critical role of corruption undermining everything to do with stability, global governance and international law, we will have a lose-lose situation. And we cannot allow that to happen.”_\n\n### Beyond classical corruption\n\nThe Munich Security Conference's decision to include corruption as a “spotlight” in the conference programme, together with other non-traditional security topics such as sexual violence, climate finance and mineral supply chains, was highly welcome. It coincides with a rise in recognition and concern over strategic or \"weaponised\" corruption as a threat to national, regional and global security and peace.\n\nAs Fenner emphasised at the outset, corruption even in the narrow sense of bribery must be of great concern to the defence and security community. When kickbacks or other bribery schemes lead to the purchase of the wrong military equipment, to the construction of substandard infrastructure, or to half the ordered ammunition missing, it has direct and potentially deadly consequences.\n\nWhat we must also talk about more is the use of corruption for longer-term (geo) strategic goals. In other words, when corruption is used as an instrument – indeed a weapon – of power and influence at home and abroad. And when, as a consequence, it completely evades and thereby undermines global governance and international law.\n\nThe result, in the words of Ke Rafitoson, is _“an escalation of violence and conflicts around the world.”_ Corruption has long been seen as a _“soft governance”_ issue, she said, but now: \n\n> _“We have to recognise that corruption has become a global threat.”_\n\n### Vicious cycle: state capture and transnational organised crime\n\nTake just about any case of state capture – when power is consolidated in the hands of a few elites, who misuse state institutions to serve their own narrow purposes – and you can trace how [corruption is wielded as a highly functional tool](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-strategic-corruption-fuels-insecurity-affecting-power) to gain and preserve power and influence.\n\nThat pattern is clearly visible in Guatemala, where President Arévalo’s recent election success owes much to popular unrest over corruption and to his personal anti-corruption campaigning. Corruption has penetrated every arm of the state over the last 20 years, he explained. Money stolen through corruption is used to empower criminal elites, who then further capture the political system in order to extract more rents – and on it goes in a vicious circle.\n\nThat has serious implications on peace and stability far beyond Guatemala as it emboldens and empowers transnational organised crime, he said, including the trafficking of drugs, humans and wildlife.\n\n> _“When you have corrupt officials, they are quite open to the type of big-money incentives that transnational organised crime can put on the table. On the other hand, transnational organised crime is interested in pushing politicians into office.”_\n\nIn the end, you find the entire governance of countries is in the hands of corrupt actors and of criminal groups. Driven by the transnational nature of organised crime, this can quickly lead to entire regions descending into a vicious circle of illegitimate governance and crime, and eventually into ever greater instability and violence.\n\n### Control over critical sectors\n\nMuch concern over strategic uses of corruption for geopolitical purposes also centres on foreign states gaining influence over sectors that are critical for sovereignty, security and stability, such as energy, water and minerals. Historical links and geographical proximity to kleptocratic states increase a country’s vulnerability.\n\nBulgaria has recently struggled with exactly that phenomenon. Noting parallels with Guatemala’s experience of state capture and organised crime, Prime Minister Denkov emphasised that corruption was not just used as a way for individuals to make money for narrow personal gain:\n\n> _“Along with classical corruption schemes, you have another type of corruption at a huge scale that affects all aspects of our lives.”_\n\nRussia-related energy deals in Bulgaria have wasted more than a billion euros, Denkov said, and resulted in little except total energy dependence on the aggressive autocratic Russian regime. It is clearly a security concern when corrupt deals result in a foreign state gaining power over critical sectors such as energy – not least when they involve sensitive installations such as nuclear power plants.\n\nOn the positive side, an anti-corruption focus is leading Bulgaria towards a much brighter future, not only in terms of its energy independence but also more broadly in terms of the quality of its governance, of rule of law and of its role in protecting the Euro-Atlantic alliance. In the last two years, with parties in government who subscribe to the fight against corruption, the country has succeeded in removing oil and gas dependence with strategic and transparent energy arrangements. It is also working persistently towards freeing other sectors from state capture.\n\nBulgaria’s example shows how political commitments to transparency, participation and anti-corruption can help countries loosen the grip of corrupt states on sectors critical to their security.\n\n### How anti-corruption and security communities can join forces\n\nAnti-corruption and defence\u002Fsecurity communities often work in bubbles, but closer collaboration could bring benefits to both sides.\n\n#### Anti-corruption tools and knowledge\n\nDespite legitimate concerns about foreign power and influence through corruption, it’s not helpful to see corruption purely as a foreign threat. Many countries need to do more to prevent corruption and illicit financial flows _domestically,_ since these ultimately threaten both their own and global security.\n\nTried and tested anti-corruption tools are essential to get one’s own house in order. Senator Whitehouse gave a powerful description of how the U.S. introduced a series of anti-corruption reforms following the realisation that:\n\n> _“We were the problem. The greatest location for hiding corruptly obtained assets was the United States of America. So we began to take that apart.”_\n\nApart from basic transparency measures like beneficial ownership registers, priorities for many states should include cracking down on enablers such as unscrupulous lawyers and accountants. These are often based in high-income jurisdictions but are key to [enabling corruption in other countries](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.transparency.org\u002Fen\u002Fpublications\u002Floophole-masters).\n\nSenator Whitehouse also testified to the usefulness of working with civil society in devising and implementing the anti-corruption reforms.\n\nLikewise, in general security policy making could benefit greatly from the knowledge and analysis of specialist anti-corruption organisations whose understanding of connections between corruption and security, and related data, facts and [reports](https:\u002F\u002Fti-defence.org\u002F), can support security-related decision making.\n\n#### Embedding anti-corruption across the functions of state\n\nBeyond applying tools in specific areas, panellists concluded that states need to embed anti-corruption as a strategic priority across all aspects of security in its widest sense – from procurement to peace building to the development of strong and independent institutions.\n\nThe [U.S. designation of corruption as a core national security issue](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.whitehouse.gov\u002Fbriefing-room\u002Fpresidential-actions\u002F2021\u002F06\u002F03\u002Fmemorandum-on-establishing-the-fight-against-corruption-as-a-core-united-states-national-security-interest\u002F) has helped to _“put corruption higher up the agenda,”_ said Senator Whitehouse. This is vital because, as President Arévalo also emphasised:\n\n> _“We were used to corruption being a problem of bad administration…. Now we are seeing political criminal cliques organising to take control of state institutions in order to make them work for corruption. This is a fundamental threat to the viability of democratic states. It is beyond a threat to the security establishment.”_\n\nUkraine’s experience also shows that anti-corruption needs to be elevated as a core and state-wide security issue. Reacting to the panel discussion, Ukrainian anti-corruption activist Hanna Hopko explained that while Ukraine has made significant progress on fighting corruption since the 2014 Maidan Revolution, the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia has propelled corruption to the top of the country’s priorities:\n\n> _“Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has redefined the struggle against corruption. In the past, we considered the fight against corruption to be about… eliminating kickbacks, \\[money laundering in\\] offshore jurisdictions, vanity construction projects… \\[Now\\] it is crystal clear that without strong institutions, producing strong policies and implementing them, anti-corruption means nothing.”_\n\nIn other words, Ukraine can only win this war if it wins the war against corruption and builds strong, independent institutions resilient to external attempts to corrupt and control them.\n\n### A tough fight ahead\n\nGuatemala and Bulgaria are just two countries facing a tough fight ahead to dismantle corrupt systems and create a well-governed state that works for the people. Legal reforms are important but not sufficient, stressed Denkov.\n\n> _“You have to have the people. It is not only the leaders. In every position you have to have a person who is willing to fight every day.”_\n\nThose people will need a lot of energy, said Senator Whitehouse:\n\n> _“For the corruption machine, maintaining corruption is life or death. You take away their corruption, there goes their money, there goes their power, their limousines, there goes everything. So they fight to defend it with determination…. The energy and persistence and determination of the corrupt needs to be matched by similar energy, persistence and determination of those trying to root out corruption.”_\n\nAnd that energy can only come from the recognition that corruption is, according to _“is no longer \\[just\\] a nuisance. It is a direct political threat,”_ according to President Arévalo.\n\n> “_Until we do not recognise that, we are not going to really be able to muster the energy, imagination and commitment at the international level to fight corruption effectively.”_\n\n### Learn more\n\n*   See the [full recording](https:\u002F\u002Fsecurityconference.org\u002Fmsc-2024\u002Fagenda\u002Fevent\u002Fspotlight-corruption\u002F) on the Munich Security Conference website.\n*   See related articles on [corruption and peace building](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fblog\u002Ffighting-corruption-promote-peace-and-security-basel-peace-forum-2024) and on [how corruption fuels insecurity by affecting power](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-strategic-corruption-fuels-insecurity-affecting-power).","2024-02-21",[14],"","the-changing-face-of-corruption-and-security-munich-security-conference-2024-2588",[17,18],"Events","Presentations",2588,[],[17,18],null,[24],"Main page",{"id":26,"storage":27,"filename_disk":28,"filename_download":29,"title":9,"type":30,"created_on":31,"modified_on":31,"charset":22,"filesize":32,"width":33,"height":34,"duration":22,"embed":22,"description":22,"location":22,"tags":22,"metadata":35,"focal_point_x":22,"focal_point_y":22,"tus_id":22,"tus_data":22,"uploaded_on":31},"206ae2d8-12c3-44d3-a203-8fdd1171bdde","local","206ae2d8-12c3-44d3-a203-8fdd1171bdde.webp","tmp.webp","image\u002Fwebp","2025-05-12T21:11:04.000Z",111974,1400,934,{},[37,62,81],{"id":38,"news_id":39,"countries_id":56},7132,{"id":5,"status":6,"user_created":40,"date_created":7,"user_updated":41,"date_updated":8,"title":9,"type":10,"body":11,"image":26,"date":12,"topic":42,"slug":15,"activity":43,"nid":19,"topics":44,"activities":45,"programme":22,"area":22,"websites":46,"translation_of":22,"language":22,"countries":47,"tags":50,"authors":52,"images":53,"translations":54,"content":55},"03bebfd8-0b40-4a2a-820d-b9d9c13b9de6","b0662e2a-864d-4888-a1b7-4342b7570b30",[14],[17,18],[],[17,18],[24],[38,48,49],7133,7134,[51],5699,[],[],[],[],{"id":57,"name":58,"code":59,"latitude":60,"longitude":61},22,"Bulgaria","BG",42.73388,25.48583,{"id":48,"news_id":63,"countries_id":75},{"id":5,"status":6,"user_created":40,"date_created":7,"user_updated":41,"date_updated":8,"title":9,"type":10,"body":11,"image":26,"date":12,"topic":64,"slug":15,"activity":65,"nid":19,"topics":66,"activities":67,"programme":22,"area":22,"websites":68,"translation_of":22,"language":22,"countries":69,"tags":70,"authors":71,"images":72,"translations":73,"content":74},[14],[17,18],[],[17,18],[24],[38,48,49],[51],[],[],[],[],{"id":76,"name":77,"code":78,"latitude":79,"longitude":80},54,"Germany","DE",51.16569,10.45153,{"id":49,"news_id":82,"countries_id":94},{"id":5,"status":6,"user_created":40,"date_created":7,"user_updated":41,"date_updated":8,"title":9,"type":10,"body":11,"image":26,"date":12,"topic":83,"slug":15,"activity":84,"nid":19,"topics":85,"activities":86,"programme":22,"area":22,"websites":87,"translation_of":22,"language":22,"countries":88,"tags":89,"authors":90,"images":91,"translations":92,"content":93},[14],[17,18],[],[17,18],[24],[38,48,49],[51],[],[],[],[],{"id":95,"name":96,"code":97,"latitude":98,"longitude":99},88,"Guatemala","GT",15.78347,-90.23076,[101],{"id":51,"news_id":102,"tags_id":114},{"id":5,"status":6,"user_created":40,"date_created":7,"user_updated":41,"date_updated":8,"title":9,"type":10,"body":11,"image":26,"date":12,"topic":103,"slug":15,"activity":104,"nid":19,"topics":105,"activities":106,"programme":22,"area":22,"websites":107,"translation_of":22,"language":22,"countries":108,"tags":109,"authors":110,"images":111,"translations":112,"content":113},[14],[17,18],[],[17,18],[24],[38,48,49],[51],[],[],[],[],{"id":115,"name":116},1376,"Defence and security",[],[],[],[],[122,154,194,217,248,272,293,316,343],{"id":123,"body":124,"status":6,"type":10,"date":125,"slug":126,"title":127,"image":128,"countries":129,"topic":130,"activity":133,"tags":135,"nid":144,"topics":145,"activities":146,"authors":147,"images":148,"websites":149,"area":22,"programme":22,"language":22,"translations":150,"translation_of":22,"user_created":40,"date_created":151,"user_updated":41,"date_updated":8,"content":152,"link":153},9522,"The Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) has launched tailored guidance on measures that companies in the oil, gas and mining sectors can adopt to reduce corruption risks when partnering with state-owned enterprises (SOEs).\n\nPublished on a user-friendly website, [Anticorruption Guidance for Partners of State-Owned Enterprises](https:\u002F\u002Fresourcegovernance.org\u002Fsoe-anticorruption) also recommends measures SOEs can take to strengthen their own anti-corruption safeguards. The guidance was [launched at a virtual event](https:\u002F\u002Fyoutu.be\u002FG5NJ3Ryc7jM) on 26 January 2022, at which our Head of Collective Action Gemma Aiolfi moderated a panel discussion.\n\nIn this interview, [Alexandra Gillies](https:\u002F\u002Fresourcegovernance.org\u002Fabout-us\u002Fexpert\u002Falexandra-gillies), Advisor to the NRGI and co-author of the guidance alongside Tom Shipley, explains how and why they developed the guidance over two years of research and multi-stakeholder consultations with private companies, SOEs and civil society stakeholders, including our [Collective Action team](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fcollective-action).\n\nHer insights throw light on the NRGI’s approach of conducting extensive, multi-stakeholder consultation and trust-based discussion, which is central to many Collective Action initiatives. A similar process could help practitioners in other sectors and countries to develop guidance that both addresses pertinent corruption risks and has a good chance of being widely adopted.\n\n### Anti-corruption recommendations already exist for extractive industries and for SOEs. Why did you decide a fresh approach was needed?\n\nOil, gas and mining industries are crucial to many countries’ development, but the benefits to citizens continue to be lost through corruption. Despite the many valuable efforts to raise standards of integrity and implement safeguards against corruption in these sectors, something is clearly missing the mark.\n\nAnd the stakes are only going to rise with the commodities boom and explosion in demand for transition minerals. Three issues stand out:\n\nFirst, interactions between international companies and SOEs in charge of oil, gas and mining resources remain a major problem area.\n\nThis finding emerged clearly from our detailed analysis of over 100 past corruption cases across many countries. Initial conversations with compliance officers confirmed that existing measures, and the standard risk-based approach to addressing corruption risks more generally, face difficulties in the case of interactions with some SOEs. They were open to fresh ideas.\n\nSecond, existing compliance systems often focus narrowly and inwardly on protecting companies from penalties for violating anti-bribery laws.\n\nYet many forms of corruption that are the most harmful to citizens are not covered by bribery laws, such as when political elites syphon off hundreds of millions of dollars that could be public revenue. We were keen to address the risks of company activities _enabling_ corruption by helping corrupt actors to carry out their schemes.\n\nThird, voluntary anti-corruption guidance needs buy-in from companies if it is to be effectively implemented across enough of the sector to make a difference.\n\nThis means it needs to take into account how companies interact with SOEs in their operations, the risks they face, and what is feasible to implement in their anti-corruption and due diligence systems. We therefore wanted to prioritise learning from private companies and other stakeholders about what’s working and what’s not in their relationships with SOEs. This is where a Collective Action approach helped.\n\n### Who is the guidance aimed at and why?\n\nDespite the focus of the guidance on five specific risk areas between extractive industry companies and SOEs – due diligence, high-risk agents, political exposure, safeguarding payments and joint ventures – many of the recommendations are relevant to a broad stakeholder group.\n\nAs well as producers directly involved in extracting natural resources, we proactively involved other companies in the supply chain, notably commodity traders and suppliers to oil, gas and mining companies. Although we drew on existing relationships at NRGI, we also reached out to get new companies involved in the conversation.\n\nWithin these companies, we are targeting not only compliance teams but also commercial departments and those responsible for external affairs, transparency, human rights and related issues. This is because we take a broad view of what counts as corruption and what kind of anti-corruption measures can help. In SOEs, we spoke to compliance teams or, where dedicated compliance functions do not yet exist, we engaged the leadership or the legal and procurement departments.\n\nThis mix reflects the professional backgrounds of those who took part in the workshops and consultation process.\n\n### What were their incentives to take part?\n\nI believe there was a genuine interest among participants in getting new ideas to tackle these common problem areas. And sharing experiences with like-minded professionals who have similar concerns is not only useful and enriching, but enjoyable.\n\nReputation is also an important factor. As with many Collective Action initiatives, engaging in such a consultation process helps to demonstrate that the company is proactively addressing corruption risks. This is particularly strong for companies that have faced public corruption issues that have damaged their reputation in the eyes of the public, investors or potential employees.\n\nThird, many appreciated the chance to contribute to industry guidance that might become widely accepted standards or influence other standards down the road. Companies have an interest in making it realistic and feasible.\n\n### Can you recap the process?\n\nFirst we conducted a lot of background research, particularly looking into past corruption cases in the extractive sector to understand the problem we were trying to address. The analysis made clear the vulnerability of SOEs in diverse countries to corruption. We then spent some time considering who should be involved in the conversations, including which types of company and from which countries, and getting initial ideas and feedback from colleagues.\n\nAfter a few initial conversations with relevant stakeholders, we scheduled a first gathering to get feedback on the topic. Prior to the meeting, we discussed the project with many of the invited company representatives in order to provide adequate background. At that first meeting, held in December 2019, around 30 people from companies, academic institutions, NGOs, international organisations and other entities gathered to discuss new approaches to preventing corruption, with a focus on SOEs.\n\nDrawing on the discussions, we then identified five priority areas of business interactions between companies and SOEs that represented particularly high corruption risks – and importantly, where existing measures are not proving sufficient to mitigate them. We then held interviews with stakeholders on these topics, which helped us gather frank feedback on what’s working and what’s not in each area.\n\nThen, we organised five virtual, invitation-only workshops, one on each of the topics of focus. The workshops provided additional ideas regarding good practices and prevailing challenges, and created opportunities for companies and experts to share ideas on sensitive issues.\n\nNext came the drafting and ongoing consultations with the workshop participants and other stakeholders, including SOE compliance teams, representatives from risk advisory consultancies, anti-corruption experts and academics, and investors. We also consulted with international banks that do business with SOEs; these can provide valuable inspiration for companies seeking to strengthen their systems for conducting customer due diligence.\n\nDrawing on these inputs as well as additional research, we then drafted the guidance, shared it with the participants, and received a very robust set of feedback.\n\n### Were you seeking consensus?\n\nNo. Importantly, we were clear from the start that the guidance would be the product of _consultation_, but not _consensus_. As an independent organisation promoting transparency and accountability in natural resource governance, we knew we might put forward some more ambitious ideas that don’t have much support among private companies.\n\nThis is a different approach from that of the [Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative](https:\u002F\u002Feiti.org\u002F) (EITI), for example, which seeks consensus on its global standard. Civil society organisations sometimes also unilaterally publish recommendations.\n\nBoth approaches have merit, but we believe a middle way is appropriate in this case: the guidelines are informed by participants’ views and reflect what is realistic and feasible, but we are not asking companies to endorse or sign up to them all.\n\n### What are the prospects for widespread adoption, and how will you know?\n\nWe hope that, as a first step, some of the participating companies adopt elements of the guidance. We of course also hope to see widespread adoption by companies and SOEs in the sectors. That includes those not directly involved in the development of the guidance.\n\nThe participatory approach makes it more likely that companies and SOEs in the sectors will adopt the guidance. Many representatives were actively engaged in its development and can see the results of their contributions. Having been involved in the discussions, they can also understand why in some instances the final document doesn’t always reflect their views.\n\nThe consultation process also enabled us to build good working relationships, so we hope to get positive responses to our follow-up surveys on the impact of the guidance on policies and practices within the companies.\n\nOne difficulty with measuring the impact of the guidance is that companies rarely disclose information about their anti-corruption practices beyond high-level statements. We believe this is a missed opportunity. Many of those involved in the consultations are doing impressive work to mitigate corruption risks and strengthen their anti-corruption safeguards. They should be shouting this kind of thing from the rooftops.\n\n### What are potential obstacles?\n\nOne big barrier to adoption is the widespread concept of “risk appetite” in business, which weighs up potential financial rewards against financial and other risks, including corruption risks. If the deal is potentially very lucrative, it could tip the balance towards going ahead despite corruption risks that can harm the public interest.\n\nOur guidance seeks to address by encouraging companies to set clear upfront rules – red lines – on what they will not tolerate in any circumstances, even if the financial rewards are huge. But changing that ingrained risk appetite approach more generally is going to take a lot more than our guidance.\n\n### What lessons did you learn and what will you take forward?\n\nFirst, a thorough stakeholder mapping is helpful to gather an influential group of stakeholders.\n\nIn this case, we identified that we needed to reach out to more supplier companies, which have traditionally been left out of conversations around extractive sector transparency and governance. Stakeholder mapping doesn’t guarantee a perfect mix – our group leaned significantly towards North American, European and Australian companies – but successful Collective Action doesn’t require every single actor to be around the table.\n\nSecond, building trust between participants – who may be direct competitors – goes beyond basic elements such as confidentiality and anonymity.\n\nWe found it useful to clarify from the start that this guidance is NRGI guidance, not the result of consensus or something that companies will be asked to endorse. This helped to set expectations and gave participants the freedom and security to engage with the issues openly and in a good faith way. And that in turn encouraged more hesitant participants to do the same.\n\nThird, don’t be afraid to talk about sensitive issues – but to do it in an empirically grounded and evidence-based way.\n\nWe felt empowered by our research and data on corruption in the sector. These allowed us to ask pertinent questions, push back where needed and generate real debate. Without that expertise or evidence base, you are standing on much shakier ground.\n\nGoing forward, we see great potential for more multi-stakeholder discussion and potentially building Collective Action initiatives around specific issues within the guidance. For example, requirements that companies use third-party agents in particular markets, or around how to utilise beneficial ownership information and respond to political exposure in the supply chain.\n\n### Learn more\n\n*   Visit the [Anticorruption Guidance for Partners of State-Owned Enterprises](https:\u002F\u002Fresourcegovernance.org\u002Fsoe-anticorruption) website and view the [launch event](https:\u002F\u002Fyoutu.be\u002FG5NJ3Ryc7jM).\n*   Learn more about the work of the [NRGI](https:\u002F\u002Fresourcegovernance.org\u002F) in promoting good governance in oil, gas minerals.\n*   Learn more about [Collective Action at the Basel Institute](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fcollective-action) and find resources, inspiration and event information on our [B20 Collective Action Hub](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fb20-collective-action-hub).","2022-03-14","how-a-participatory-approach-helped-the-nrgi-to-develop-effective-anti-corruption-guidance-for-oil-gas-and-mining-sectors-2198","How a participatory approach helped the NRGI to develop effective anti-corruption guidance for oil, gas and mining sectors","https:\u002F\u002Fjam.baselgovernance.org\u002Fapi\u002Fassets\u002F24d0505c-1b97-44b2-af4e-5b8c5f09923f?width=1000&height=650&format=webp&quality=80",[],[131,132],"Collective Action","Private Sector",[134],"Insights",[136,140],{"tags_id":137},{"id":138,"name":139},804,"Natural resources",{"tags_id":141},{"id":142,"name":143},859,"Corruption risks",2198,[131,132],[134],[],[],[24,131],[],"2022-05-26T22:51:56.000Z",[],"\u002Fresources\u002Fnews\u002Fhow-a-participatory-approach-helped-the-nrgi-to-develop-effective-anti-corruption-guidance-for-oil-gas-and-mining-sectors-2198",{"id":155,"body":156,"status":6,"type":10,"date":157,"slug":158,"title":159,"image":160,"countries":161,"topic":163,"activity":166,"tags":168,"nid":179,"topics":180,"activities":182,"authors":183,"images":186,"websites":22,"area":22,"programme":22,"language":187,"translations":188,"translation_of":22,"user_created":40,"date_created":189,"user_updated":190,"date_updated":191,"content":192,"link":193},10572,"Corruption at border points remains a pressing global issue, threatening not only border integrity but also the health, safety and security of our societies. It enables illicit trafficking, facilitates organised crime and undermines trust in public institutions.\n\nIn our _[Working Paper 58](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fpublications\u002Fwp-58)_, Saba Kassa and Jacopo Costa examine how corruption facilitates drug trafficking through the port of Rotterdam.\n\nThrough in-depth interviews with stakeholders, a review of judicial cases and desk research, the paper shows how trafficking and corruption strategies are changing in response to strengthened enforcement at border spaces.\n\nIt contributes to the growing body of work that looks at corruption from a systemic viewpoint, analysing the relationships and adaptive capabilities that allow organised crime to thrive.\n\nThe Working Paper was written as part of the [FALCON](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.falcon-horizon.eu\u002F) (Fight Against Large-scale Corruption and Organised Crime Networks) project. The research supports efforts to develop more robust and forward-looking approaches to combat corruption and drug trafficking.\n\nRead the executive summary below.\n\n### Unintended consequences of strengthened enforcement\n\nThis Working Paper examines how corruption facilitates drug trafficking (specifically cocaine) through the port of Rotterdam, looking at the underlying drivers and strategies involved.\n\nLegal trade routes and commercial ports are especially attractive because of the high volumes of cargo, which make it possible to conceal illicit cargo under licit cargo. The spatial complexity of the port of Rotterdam also makes it difficult to fully secure it against criminal activity.\n\nDigging deeper into the facilitating factors of trafficking, the paper finds that, paradoxically, a main driver of rising border corruption is the increased political attention on and resources dedicated to fighting trafficking.\n\nDesk research and stakeholder interviews highlight that as authorities deploy new technology to improve detection, traffickers face more obstacles to operating effectively.\n\nHaving someone on the inside then becomes increasingly important. So, an unintended but important consequence of the strengthened fight against drug trafficking is that corruption becomes even more essential for the operational success of organised crime networks.\n\n### Customs officials are specifically vulnerable\n\nThis study focuses specifically on the role of customs. Tasked with monitoring the import and export of goods, customs officers are important actors in the fight against drug trafficking. However, their role also makes them vulnerable: they have crucial knowledge on processes and procedures, access to systems and discretionary power that can be exploited by criminals.\n\nThe desk research shows that corruption is used strategically to circumvent two important bottlenecks: the container screening and security as cargo enters the port, and the exit of drugs from the port. Traffickers may seek to obtain key information or direct assistance from customs officers.\n\n### Collusion – coercion – infiltration\n\nThese corrupt relationships and the emerging networks between members of crime groups and the customs officials are diverse. Some relationships can be characterised by collusion, where customs officials offer their services or are persuaded to cooperate. This collusion may be opportunistic or targeted.\n\nOther relationships can be characterised by coercion. Customs officials may be lured by financial reward, but this is accompanied by intimidation or the threat of violence to ensure that the officer cooperates and continues to cooperate. Our research highlights that the boundary between collusion and coercion is often blurred.\n\nBeyond collusion and coercion, we also see infiltration, which crosses the boundaries between the criminal, public and private. What emerges is less a matter of individual corruption and more akin to regulatory capture, where the public office position is held by a member of the criminal network.\n\nThe review of the judicial cases shows that bribes involved in these schemes can amount to millions. To hide and use the illicit gains, traffickers rely on money laundering, disguising its source as legitimate. They often enlist the help of family and friends, a trusted inner circle or professional specialists. They may also hide cash at home or invest it in assets and businesses in the Netherlands or abroad.\n\n### Adaptive corruption strategies\n\nA key finding of our research is that the criminal and corruption strategies used to facilitate drug trafficking are highly adaptive. The underlying driver of this adaptability is the unchanging demand for drugs and high profitability of the crime. This pushes traffickers to adopt new strategies to overcome hurdles in supplying the demand.\n\nCorruption strategies adapt in response to new enforcement measures. When control systems are changed and\u002For strengthened, corruption strategies evolve alongside them. This research identifies some key patterns:\n\n*   Stronger detection efforts increase the incentives for corruption.\n*   Evolving systems encourage a similar shift in corruption strategies.\n*   Anti-corruption and anti-trafficking measures may change the profile of those most vulnerable to being co-opted.\n*   The characteristics of corruption can also evolve, from collusion to coercion, to full infiltration of institutions and systems – with blurred lines in between.\n\n### Trafficking strategies evolve, too\n\nTrafficking strategies are similarly adaptive. There have been increased efforts by the port to combat trafficking through enhanced detection and technology. This was initially reflected by increased drug seizures. But since 2024, drugs seizures have declined.\n\nThe research findings provide an explanation for this: As detection strengthens, more drug seizures are made. But what may happen, too, is a response to these new measures. As the risk of detection increases, criminals may adapt their trafficking strategies to overcome the additional hurdles, including:\n\n*   changing concealment strategies; and\n*   changing modes of transport and trafficking routes, including to ports outside of the Netherlands.\n\n### Red flags and risk indicators\n\nThese developments highlight the complexity in understanding the impact of stronger anti-trafficking measures on both corruption and trafficking strategies.\n\nTrafficking and corruption are typically measured by detection, for example, by changes in the volume of drug seizures or the number of public officials caught engaging in corruption.\n\nBut the elephant in the room is that increasingly sophisticated criminal strategies can hide what is really happening. This underscores the need to continuously strengthen our ability to recognise “red flags” of corruption and trafficking. Data-driven tools and refined risk indicators are critical for understanding how crime and corruption strategies are changing.\n\n### A holistic understanding and improved foresight\n\nThe evolving nature of criminal strategies is often likened to a game of chess: enforcement makes a move, and criminal networks adapt. But what now seems to be emerging is more troubling.\n\nWhen barriers to drug trafficking increase while demand remains unchanged, crime and corruption strategies adapt in ways that can deepen their impact on society, leading for example to the hardening of crime and associated violence.\n\nThis makes anticipating how crime may adapt to changing anti-corruption and anti-trafficking strategies critical. Improved foresight and scenario-building capacities will be vital in order to develop more robust enforcement efforts against drug trafficking and mitigate the negative impact on society.\n\nA holistic approach is essential. Addressing corruption as a facilitator of drug trafficking requires a broad view of crime that focuses on understanding vulnerabilities, leveraging data and harnessing collaboration.\n\nThe risk of trafficking routes changing are high, therefore, we must use every tool at our disposal to ensure effective and sustainable enforcement efforts.\n\n### Learn more\n\n*   Download the full _[Working Paper 58: Corruption as a facilitator of drug trafficking in the port of Rotterdam: Drivers, strategies and implications](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fpublications\u002Fwp-58)_\n*   View related online workshop for enforcement and research communities: _[Red flags at the frontier: detecting and disrupting border corruption in the EU](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fnode\u002F2844)_, 23 September 2025\n\n### _Acknowledgement and disclaimer_\n\n_FALCON is funded under the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Program Grant Agreement ID 101121281. The Basel Institute on Governance, as an associated partner without the right to receive funds directly from the European Research Executive Agency, has received funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). The contents of the Working Paper are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union, the European Research Executive Agency or SERI._","2025-09-11","how-corruption-helps-drug-traffickers-adapt-to-strengthened-border-enforcement-2848","How corruption helps drug traffickers adapt to strengthened border enforcement","https:\u002F\u002Fjam.baselgovernance.org\u002Fapi\u002Fassets\u002F13171c8d-1c71-4c6a-9688-3c1ff7b9775a?width=1000&height=650&format=webp&quality=80",[162],7796,[164,165],"Prevention"," Research and Innovation",[167,134],"Research",[169,173,175],{"tags_id":170},{"id":171,"name":172},967,"Organised crime",{"tags_id":174},{"id":142,"name":143},{"tags_id":176},{"id":177,"name":178},1374,"Law enforcement",2848,[181],"Prevention Research and Innovation",[167,134],[184,185],1355,1356,[],"English",[],"2025-09-11T16:01:34.000Z","3d9ff205-1640-4f34-b5b6-86977f51bbd6","2026-05-07T21:29:57.000Z",[],"\u002Fresources\u002Fnews\u002Fhow-corruption-helps-drug-traffickers-adapt-to-strengthened-border-enforcement-2848",{"id":195,"body":196,"status":6,"type":10,"date":197,"slug":198,"title":199,"image":200,"countries":201,"topic":202,"activity":204,"tags":205,"nid":206,"topics":207,"activities":208,"authors":209,"images":211,"websites":212,"area":22,"programme":22,"language":22,"translations":213,"translation_of":22,"user_created":40,"date_created":214,"user_updated":41,"date_updated":8,"content":215,"link":216},9764,"Conservationists and public health experts alike have welcomed [the recent renewed commitment by the Chinese government](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.chinadaily.com.cn\u002Fa\u002F202002\u002F10\u002FWS5e40906aa3101282172761c0.html) to eliminate illegal wildlife trade in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) emergency. On 26 January, China ordered a temporary ban on all trade in wild animals, and [since then](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.dailymail.co.uk\u002Fnews\u002Farticle-7992087\u002FChinese-police-seize-38-000-illegally-trafficked-wild-animals-20-days.html) Chinese authorities have reportedly seized 38,000 live animals along with 2,347 kg of wildlife products, and punished almost 700 offenders.\n\nMany hope this ban will become [permanent](https:\u002F\u002Fnewsroom.wcs.org\u002FNews-Releases\u002FarticleType\u002FArticleView\u002FarticleId\u002F13778\u002FWCS-Issues-Short-Video-on-Wuhan-Coronavirus-Zoonotic-Outbreaks-Where-It-Starts-and-Stops.aspx), at least in terms of the world’s most vulnerable species. As former UK Foreign Secretary William Hague states powerfully [in a recent article](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.telegraph.co.uk\u002Fnews\u002F2020\u002F02\u002F10\u002Fcoronavirus-calamity-china-cannot-continue-dangerous-wildlife\u002F), “Capturing, trading and consuming endangered species should have no place in the modern world.”\n\nThis represents a clear and correct call to action, but one that comes with a note of caution. Corruption risks nullifying any attempts to crack down on the illegal wildlife trade and the organised crime networks behind it. Research shows that corruption lubricates illegal wildlife trade at all levels, from [officials turning a blind eye](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.baselgovernance.org\u002Fnews\u002Fnew-working-paper-corruption-and-illegal-wildlife-trade-east-africa) to corrupted [employees bypassing security checks](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.baselgovernance.org\u002Fpublications\u002Fworking-paper-32-private-sector-engagement-fight-against-illegal-wildlife-trade) at ports and airports, to the intentional misuse of the legal wildlife trade as a cover for illicit activity.\n\nIt’s not just academic.\n\nMany of the exotic animals traded at the market at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak were imported in violation of Chinese customs regulations, having been smuggled under cover of some other commodity or trafficked by criminals facilitated by unscrupulous business people and government officials all along the illicit supply chain. The market itself where the virus seems to have originated nominally passed inspections late last year.\n\nLord Hague’s article describes how the efforts of Chinese law enforcement officials to fight illegal wildlife trade are \"hampered by vendors using licenses to sell legal products such as hares and deer, as a cover for the illegal products kept under the counter.\"\n\nCorruption, we find, lies at the centre of the problem. Put even more bluntly, the novel coronavirus crisis would not exist without the globalised illegal trade in wildlife, and in turn the illegal wildlife trade cannot exist at this dangerous scale without corruption.\n\nIn context of the current public health emergency at least, one thing is clear: corruption kills.\n\nThe question we face now is to what extent anti-corruption will form part of the picture – not just in China but in other countries battling to tackle the world’s fourth largest illegal trade.\n\nThankfully, there is help available.  \n\n### Unlocking the power of the private sector\n\nWildlife traffickers often currently operate with impunity, but they suffer from two major vulnerabilities.\n\nFirst, virtually all illegal wildlife moves commercially. Wildlife trafficking networks exploit commercial transport services such as shipping, trucking, air cargo, and passenger flights to smuggle illegal wildlife, leaving trafficker access to commercial transport a key chokepoint.\n\nSecond, global wildlife trafficking relies on a complex international supply chain, but one that is in most cases backed by and constructed for the monetary benefit of a relatively small number of key corrupt financiers and facilitators. Even though payments at the source and retail levels are often in cash, these middlemen rely on the international financial system to fund their illegal activities and launder their profits, often in combination with other illicit business.\n\nCombined, this means the private sector can be a powerful partner in efforts to eliminate the illegal wildlife trade and combat the corruption that is its lifeblood.\n\nThe [United for Wildlife](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.unitedforwildlife.org\u002F) Taskforces, an initiative of The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, brings together the world’s leading [transport](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.unitedforwildlife.org\u002Fwhat-is-the-transport-taskforce\u002F) and [financial](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.unitedforwildlife.org\u002Fprojects\u002Ffinancial-taskforce\u002F) firms along with field experts and law enforcement to do just that. Through this collective network and its intelligence-sharing system implemented by the Basel Institute on Governance, private-sector members can access – and share – crucial information on wildlife trafficking.\n\nThis can be the key that investigators need to crack cases. It also helps the companies and industry bodies make it more difficult for wildlife traffickers to misuse private-sector infrastructure and systems for their illegal activities, and be more prepared to address corruption risks that exist in many key transport and finance hubs for wildlife trafficking.\n\nFollowing recent Taskforce industry events in London, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Johannesburg, and Nairobi, numerous firms have shown increased [interest](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.investec.com\u002Fen_za\u002Ffocus\u002Fbeyond-wealth\u002Fcombating-illegal-wildlife-trade-banks-take-up-the-challenge.html) in joining the initiative. This is particularly true in the financial sector, where banks have embraced the fight against wildlife trafficking as a way to enhance their compliance and risk management systems as well as contribute to more environmentally sustainable business models.\n\nIn this vein, the global money laundering watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), under the current Chinese presidency recently committed to [prioritise wildlife trafficking](http:\u002F\u002Fwww.fatf-gafi.org\u002Fpublications\u002Ffatfgeneral\u002Fdocuments\u002Foutcomes-plenary-october-2019.html). This increased interest is highly welcome, because the success of collective action is highly dependent on achieving the right critical mass.\n\n### Transnational crime needs transnational, cross-sector cooperation\n\nIt’s often said that the criminals are able to cooperate much better than the people trying to fight them. How does this model of intelligence-sharing and collaboration across borders and between the public and private sectors work? A recent case story gives a flavour.\n\nA major transnational wildlife trafficking syndicate operating across Africa and into Asia was taken down in June 2019, following a complex investigation coordinated across multiple countries and law enforcement actors. The [four suspects were indicted in the United States](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.justice.gov\u002Fusao-sdny\u002Fpr\u002Fmembers-african-criminal-enterprise-charged-large-scale-trafficking-rhinoceros-horns) on charges related to ivory and rhino horn trafficking, heroin trafficking, money laundering, conspiracy, and other financial crime offences.\n\nThe collaboration of private-sector companies and on-the-ground NGOs in providing information that led to this successful strike was crucial. You can read about it in this [in-depth article by CBS News](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.cbsnews.com\u002Fnews\u002Fwildlife-heroin-trafficking-ring-africa-bust-southern-district-new-york-fish-and-wildlife\u002F).\n\nBeyond the impacts of this particular case, the investigation marks a watershed moment in how the world is responding to wildlife trafficking. In particular, it demonstrates:\n\n*   The power of a new model of collaboration across law enforcement, private, and non-governmental sectors.\n*   The ability to successfully bring to justice “untouchables” - and do so in a way that they are sure to prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law without the risk of corruption of the process.\n*   The potential of being able to execute coordinated law enforcement operations across multiple countries in the wildlife trafficking arena. To truly disrupt and destroy trafficking networks, this is what is needed.\n*   The use of the “follow the money” approach, in both the investigation and also in regard to charging the suspects for money laundering and financial crime offences. This is standard in cases of grand corruption, but very new for wildlife trafficking.\n\nCases like this demonstrate that wildlife traffickers who considered themselves “untouchable” are no longer safe from the reach of law enforcement.\n\nAnd that, with the help of anti-corruption tools and collective initiatives such as the United for Wildlife Transport and Financial Taskforces, actors in the private, public and third sectors can help turn commitments against illegal wildlife trade into action and into lasting positive impact for our planet and human health.","2020-02-17","covid-19-how-anti-corruption-tools-and-industry-collaboration-can-help-us-win-the-fight-against-illegal-wildlife-trade-1074","COVID-19: How anti-corruption tools and industry collaboration can help us win the fight against illegal wildlife trade","https:\u002F\u002Fjam.baselgovernance.org\u002Fapi\u002Fassets\u002F944f7574-a1e7-4f46-88b8-2ad1c746a55f?width=1000&height=650&format=webp&quality=80",[],[203],"Green Corruption",[134],[],1074,[203],[134],[210],1245,[],[24],[],"2022-05-26T22:55:22.000Z",[],"\u002Fresources\u002Fnews\u002Fcovid-19-how-anti-corruption-tools-and-industry-collaboration-can-help-us-win-the-fight-against-illegal-wildlife-trade-1074",{"id":218,"body":219,"status":6,"type":10,"date":220,"slug":221,"title":222,"image":223,"countries":224,"topic":226,"activity":227,"tags":228,"nid":235,"topics":236,"activities":237,"authors":238,"images":240,"websites":241,"area":22,"programme":22,"language":22,"translations":242,"translation_of":22,"user_created":40,"date_created":243,"user_updated":244,"date_updated":245,"content":246,"link":247},10531,"> Environmental destruction and corruption are two of the greatest global challenges of our time. Both are closely interrelated…\n\nThis was the starting point of a [high-level meeting](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.regierung.li\u002Fmedienportal-medium\u002F16182\u002F232910\u002F0\u002Fmedienmitteilung) hosted by the Principality of Liechtenstein. Dominique Hasler and Panagiotis Potolidis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs led the discussions together with Peter Maurer, President of the Basel Institute on Governance, and Juhani Grossmann, Head of our Green Corruption Programme.\n\nThe participants took a fresh look at the interconnected threats posed by corruption, environmental degradation and climate change, and at our Green Corruption programme's renewed focus on climate and the energy transition.\n\nIn his address, Peter Maurer also reflected on the need for bold collective action across borders to tackle these key global challenges. Our [Green Corruption programme](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fgreen-corruption) – made possible through core funding from Liechtenstein – is a powerful example of how international partnerships and innovative solutions can make a real difference.\n\nAn edited excerpt of Peter Maurer’s speech follows:\n\n> Building on 20 years of global and national experience in the fight against corruption, we at the Basel Institute have had the opportunity over the last seven years to look more closely at the interfaces between corruption and the environment. In our Green Corruption programme we are working with partners across four continents, supporting both enforcement and corruption prevention.\n> \n> While the political focus on environmental issues and the protection of natural resources in the past has brought many positive results, we have also seen how corruption and financial crime have become drivers of environmental problems:\n> \n> *   Standards are not adhered to.\n> *   Illegal trade and financial activities lead to new forms of exploitation of nature.\n> *   Regulatory authorities can be influenced, supervisory and enforcement authorities bribed into inaction.\n> *   Climate legislation is manipulated.\n> \n> And wherever a lot of new funds flow in – like climate finance or renewable energy projects – there are direct and indirect risks of abuse.\n> \n> Integrity and anti-corruption are crucial in effectively tackling the climate and environmental crisis. But the relevant authorities, such as law enforcement and environmental protection agencies, cooperate very little, either with each other or with other stakeholders.\n> \n> The good news is: There are encouraging examples. Our broad geographical focus allows us to take stock and make concrete suggestions for the future.\n> \n> ### Where corruption and environmental issues converge\n> \n> Our Green Corruption team is intensifying efforts in key areas where we see corruption undermining our collective ability to tackle the climate crisis: the energy transition and climate finance.\n> \n> Energy transition\n> \n> Renewable energy is essential to address climate change. The renewables sector comes with new regulations, financial flows, processes, actors. The new settings also mean new integrity risks to address.\n> \n> In addition, renewable energies depend on the mining of critical raw materials. Lithium or nickel, for example, are used in the production of batteries or renewable power generation in turbines or solar modules.\n> \n> There is growing long-term demand for the mining of these minerals. The increasing competition for these resources invites new players, such as technology companies and commodity traders. And this new rush is accompanied by numerous corruption scandals.\n> \n> Despite the high risks, very few safeguards are put in place to prevent corruption from undermining the effective, consensual and sustainable extraction of critical materials.\n> \n> In the next phase of our Green Corruption programme, we are starting detailed investigations into corruption risks, including with regard to lithium in Ukraine and nickel in Indonesia. These studies will also help us to support government authorities in strengthening their internal controls and risk mitigation measures.\n> \n> Climate finance\n> \n> We all know today that tackling the effects of climate change will require enormous investments. These are necessary to a) slow down climate change, and b) prepare and adapt to the unavoidable effects of the changing climate.\n> \n> Despite these two strategies being subject to political volatility, the basic facts make this an even stronger growth area in the medium to long term. The UN puts the cost of tackling climate change at USD 5.5 trillion a year. This is more than the combined GDP of Germany and Switzerland. Very substantial financial resources are already being invested in mitigating and adapting to climate change.\n> \n> As money is tight and climate change compete with other financial priorities like defence and migration, we need to get more out of existing funds. That means ensuring that they are not lost to corruption.\n> \n> Unfortunately, our partners at Transparency International are [documenting](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.transparency.org\u002Fen\u002Fpublications\u002Fclimate-and-corruption-atlas-lessons-from-real-cases) a growing number of corruption incidents in climate initiatives: Bribery to secure land for carbon capture; permits and licences for infrastructure that can only be obtained through corruption; bribes for environmental impact assessments; corruption in the certification and sale of carbon credits.\n> \n> There are multiple, complex reasons for corruption being present in the responses to climate change. These range from weak internal controls and excessive decision-making powers at environmental regulatory authorities to poorly designed and safeguarded carbon offsetting projects.\n> \n> Overall, our efforts aim to boost cooperation between different actors to help integrity standards and better practice to take hold. There is a need for greater understanding of systemic issues, more effective training and better legal, political and institutional guidance.\n> \n> ### Seeking answers\n> \n> The international community is faced with a number of pertinent questions:\n> \n> *   How can we use the money we have to make an impact on important problems relating to the environment, climate change, biodiversity, water and food?\n> *   How can we build on market forces and support competitive companies that contribute to the necessary energy and economic policy changes?\n> *   How can we make access to critical materials transparent so that we can better utilise them to bring about environmental and energy policy change globally?\n> *   How can we better harmonise regulatory measures and our own initiatives?\n> \n> Finding and implementing answers to these questions is challenging, not least in the face of geopolitical volatility and transactional politics. But it also presents opportunities for players of all sizes, including small and medium-sized countries, to show leadership, push for innovative solutions and get involved in tangible ways.\n> \n> The Principality of Liechtenstein is doing just that. Its support of initiatives at the intersection of corruption and the environment such as our Green Corruption programme goes a long way.","2025-02-04","peter-maurer-on-new-priorities-in-addressing-corruption-environment-and-climate-challenges-2762","Peter Maurer on new priorities in addressing corruption, environment and climate challenges","https:\u002F\u002Fjam.baselgovernance.org\u002Fapi\u002Fassets\u002F256dabda-b6d7-4665-a094-cf8ddf9f4ff8?width=1000&height=650&format=webp&quality=80",[225],7072,[203],[17,134,18],[229,233],{"tags_id":230},{"id":231,"name":232},1303,"Environment",{"tags_id":234},{"id":138,"name":139},2762,[203],[17,134,18],[239],1091,[],[24],[],"2025-02-04T17:01:50.000Z","dfef11db-1bc6-47e9-a61d-93443995484b","2026-05-08T21:17:39.000Z",[],"\u002Fresources\u002Fnews\u002Fpeter-maurer-on-new-priorities-in-addressing-corruption-environment-and-climate-challenges-2762",{"id":249,"body":250,"status":6,"type":10,"date":251,"slug":252,"title":253,"image":254,"countries":255,"topic":256,"activity":257,"tags":258,"nid":259,"topics":260,"activities":261,"authors":262,"images":265,"websites":266,"area":22,"programme":22,"language":22,"translations":267,"translation_of":22,"user_created":40,"date_created":268,"user_updated":190,"date_updated":269,"content":270,"link":271},10372,"Many anti-corruption initiatives contain some kind of messaging element, such as public education campaigns or awareness-raising activities. Substantial resources, financial and human, are invested every year to develop and deliver messages about the evils of corruption and the need to eradicate it.\n\nHowever, recent research has cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of messages about corruption in achieving their intended results.\n\n### Synthesising lessons\n\nA new Working Paper by our Public Governance team analyses seven main types of anti-corruption messaging for their impact. It extracts lessons for practitioners seeking to adopt a behavioural communications approach.\n\nOverall, the review finds that:\n\n*   Emphasising that corruption is widespread typically backfires.\n*   Negatively framed messages are mostly ineffective.\n*   Messages with a narrowed focus and target group may be more effective.\n\n### Changing behaviour\n\nThe report incorporates insights from behaviour change theories and research, for example on [social norms](http:\u002F\u002Fhttps:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fpublications\u002Fquick-guide-10-social-norms-and-corruption).\n\nThe authors also look to behavioural science to find solutions for when messages fail to convince people to update their beliefs – even in the face of credible information that defies those beliefs.\n\n### Theory of Change\n\nThe Working Paper gives practical implications for designing anti-corruption communication as part of behaviour change interventions. This includes outlining how to develop a robust Theory of Change to enhance the success of such efforts. The authors encourage practitioners to consider:\n\n*   the baseline of prevailing descriptive norms, injunctive norms, personal attitudes and behaviours;\n*   the potential power of influence (identify which outcomes are within the intervention’s control);\n*   the messenger (as certain messengers hold more sway in reaching the target group than others).\n\nPractitioners are also encouraged to make messages relevant and actionable. Ways to do this include inviting relevant stakeholders to comment on the process, observing real-world behaviour and using messages about the concrete impact of corruption.\n\n### Tracking and creating long-term change\n\nFinally, the guidance recommends that practitioners invest in a strong monitoring and evaluation framework. This is crucial for effectively measuring the achievement of outcomes and the intervention’s adaptability to any changes. Practitioners must also think about messaging in terms of long-term outcomes and consider how to make an intervention sustainable. This can include complementing messaging with other approaches, such as:\n\n*   Reforms of the regulatory framework or changes to incentives\n*   Community meetings\n*   Cultivating networks of champions\n*   Engaging opinion leaders\n*   Credible monitoring and potential for punishment\n\n### More\n\n*   View and download: [Working Paper 45: Strategic anti-corruption communications: Guidance for behaviour change interventions.](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fpublications\u002Fwp-45)\n*   This publication is prepared as guidance for the USAID Indonesia Integrity Initiative (USAID INTEGRITAS), a corruption prevention programme in Indonesia implemented by a consortium consisting of Kemitraan (Partnership for Governance Reform), Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), Transparency International Indonesia (TII) and the Basel Institute on Governance. The initiative supports the country’s efforts to prevent corruption by enhancing civic engagement and strengthening a culture of integrity and accountability.","2023-06-13","which-anti-corruption-messaging-works-best-new-working-paper-2463","Which anti-corruption messaging works best? New Working Paper","https:\u002F\u002Fjam.baselgovernance.org\u002Fapi\u002Fassets\u002Fa67eb80a-d6c7-4e5e-a026-0df56d8af287?width=1000&height=650&format=webp&quality=80",[],[164,165],[14],[],2463,[181],[],[263,264],1138,1139,[],[24],[],"2023-06-16T08:39:04.000Z","2026-05-07T21:29:54.000Z",[],"\u002Fresources\u002Fnews\u002Fwhich-anti-corruption-messaging-works-best-new-working-paper-2463",{"id":273,"body":274,"status":6,"type":10,"date":275,"slug":276,"title":277,"image":278,"countries":279,"topic":280,"activity":281,"tags":282,"nid":283,"topics":284,"activities":285,"authors":286,"images":287,"websites":288,"area":22,"programme":22,"language":22,"translations":289,"translation_of":22,"user_created":40,"date_created":290,"user_updated":41,"date_updated":8,"content":291,"link":292},10518,"_An interview with Martin Benderson by Nicolas Hocq._\n\nMaritime corruption poses significant challenges to global trade, inflating costs, delaying operations and undermining integrity in supply chains. The Maritime Anti-Corruption Network ([MACN](https:\u002F\u002Fmacn.dk\u002F)), a leading international Collective Action initiative, has been at the forefront of addressing these issues through collaboration with governments, businesses and civil society.\n\nIn this exclusive interview, Martin Benderson, Chief Partnership Officer at MACN, sheds light on the findings of MACN’s [recent report](https:\u002F\u002Fcollective-action.com\u002Fexplore\u002Fpublications\u002F2362\u002F). This quantifies the costs of maritime corruption, underscores the importance of transparency and collaboration and revisits how MACN is tackling the USD 260-million corruption problem in the sector. Martin then shares his insights on the organisation’s mission, the evolving nature of maritime corruption and the impactful strategies it has implemented to drive change.\n\n### The costs of maritime corruption\n\n_MACN’s recent report focuses on the direct and indirect costs of corruption for maritime companies. Could you elaborate on the key findings and how companies are using these insights to improve their operations?_\n\nThe report outlines the wide-reaching impact of maritime corruption on the maritime industry and on society as a whole. Using Nigeria as a case study, we used an approach with two hypothetical scenarios:\n\n*   Business-as-usual scenario: Assumes that bribes are paid without resistance by private or public actors in the port and maritime sector. Under this scenario, maritime corruption increases transport and logistics costs by 15 percent, resulting in an annual cost of corruption of over USD 162 million for the industry, substantially reducing GDP and job opportunities.\n\n*   Zero-tolerance scenario: Assumes no bribes are paid or requested by either the public or private sector. This scenario suggests that eliminating corruption could reduce costs by 62 percent (over USD 100 million annually) for the private sector. It also estimates an increase in GDP by USD 130 million annually and the creation of more than 147,000 full-time jobs.\n\nComparing these scenarios illustrates the potential economic gains from eliminating corruption in the port and maritime sector. Further, the study sheds light on the impact of MACN’s current anti-corruption initiatives on socioeconomic development, trade and societies.\n\nAt the company level, the study provides clear evidence of the value of upholding robust anti-corruption standards and participating in Collective Action. It demonstrates how such efforts not only contribute to a healthier bottom line, but also address the broader, often hidden costs of corruption. These industry-wide and societal costs – though not always directly encountered in a company’s daily operations or supply chain – have a profound influence on the sector as a whole.\n\n### The Maritime Anti-Corruption Network\n\n_Please tell us about the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network’s (MACN) origins. How has its role evolved since then?_\n\nMACN was established by a small number of maritime companies in 2011, in response to tightening anti-bribery laws, such as the UK Bribery Act, and the recognition that individual companies cannot combat corruption alone in the global, highly complex supply chains surrounding shipping.\n\nTwelve years ago, we launched our first Collective Action initiative in Nigeria, working with the industry, government, local businesses and civil society to drive reform and establish accountability mechanisms in the country’s port and maritime sector. This model has since been replicated in Argentina, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Ukraine, Pakistan and Ghana. This expansion would not have been possible without the backing of our members, bilateral and multilateral donors as well as local governments that collaborated on these initiatives.\n\nMACN now has over 200 private-sector members representing the global value chain in the maritime industry and has become one of the largest industry-led Collective Action networks.\n\n### Corruption challenges in the maritime industry\n\n_What are some of the practical corruption challenges maritime companies face, and how do these challenges affect global supply chains?_\n\nMaritime trade is a highly complex environment involving numerous public- and private-sector stakeholders. On average, seven industry stakeholders and seven government agencies are involved in inspecting and clearing a single ship when it crosses an international border.\n\nThis complexity creates opportunities for coercive corruption, where bribes are requested during routine vessel and cargo clearance. Shipping companies are often pressured to make corrupt payments – either in cash or in kind – to avoid delays, excessive fines or even the detention of their vessels. These demands exploit the industry's reliance on strict time schedules and daily charter rates, leaving individual companies with limited options to resist without facing severe operational or financial consequences.\n\nThe shipping industry’s supply chain is global, involving multinational companies and local SMEs to ensure a ship reaches its destination. Ensuring transparency and addressing corruption risks across this intricate network is a significant challenge, even for companies with robust compliance standards. Maintaining a strict zero-tolerance policy across supply chains requires strong partnerships empowering and supporting both employees and suppliers to reject and report corruption.\n\n### Measures for meaningful industry change\n\n_What specific actions has MACN implemented to address these challenges, and what has been the impact of these efforts?_\n\nMACN empowers the maritime industry to strengthen internal anti-corruption programmes and enhance collaboration through supply chains to prevent and combat corruption. This is achieved through MACN’s tailored compliance solutions, tools and training designed specifically for the sector.\n\nOur approach combines aligning compliance expectations with practical, frontline support for stakeholders. Key measures include developing anti-bribery contractual clauses, training modules and reporting mechanisms, as well as offering actionable guidance on rejecting corruption. Through our country-based Collective Action initiatives, we equip local companies with industry-specific tools to combat corruption.\n\nAdditionally, MACN advocates higher integrity standards and clearly defined anti-corruption regulation in maritime trade. Our collaboration with the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the leading body on maritime governance, has been pivotal. Together, we have successfully placed maritime corruption on the IMO agenda and issued actionable anti-corruption guidance for both private and public sectors. This achievement highlights the critical importance of addressing maritime corruption and reinforces MACN’s role as a catalyst for meaningful change in the industry.\n\n### Targeted and adaptive interventions\n\n_Corruption in the maritime sector varies significantly by region. How does MACN tailor its anti-corruption strategies to address specific regional challenges? And what steps are taken to ensure these strategies remain adaptable in a changing global environment?_\n\nMACN is a data-driven initiative that leverages frontline industry data to identify and address the most prevalent and severe corruption risks. We have collected nearly 65,000 anonymous incident reports, detailing firsthand accounts of corrupt demands across more than 1,300 ports. The data helps us build anti-corruption initiatives that are targeting the reported challenges. This in turn helps us get buy-in from companies and governments as we are trying to resolve practical difficulties in daily operations.\n\nMACN applies adaptive learning in all its interventions, recognising that combating corruption often produces unexpected outcomes. When successful anti-corruption efforts eliminate issues in one area, they may resurface in another form elsewhere in the supply chain. Ongoing monitoring and stakeholder dialogue are crucial to stay ahead of these emerging challenges.\n\n### All stakeholders play a role\n\n_What role do different stakeholder groups (private sector, international organisations, governments and civil society) play in supporting MACN, and how does MACN engage with them to maximise efficiency in preventing corruption?_\n\nThe role of various stakeholders in addressing corruption depends on the specific challenges faced in each country. However, at a broader level, MACN’s Collective Action approach is built on several key assumptions.\n\nFirst, the maritime industry must comply with national and international anti-corruption regulations, gather evidence and use MACN’s anonymous reporting platforms to highlight systemic corruption challenges in the port and maritime sectors.\n\nSecond, governments must be open to learning from the private sector's experiences, using evidence to improve their compliance standards, regulatory frameworks and enforcement systems.\n\nThird, MACN and our local civil society partners play a crucial role in holding both public- and private-sector stakeholders accountable, serving as trust builders between the two. Multilateral organisations, such as the IMO, OECD and others, can apply regulatory and normative pressure to drive behavioural and policy changes in both the public and private sector.\n\nWe and our implementing partners carefully assess the position and influence of each stakeholder group to identify who can play which role in our collective efforts to champion the overall anti-corruption agenda.","2024-12-06","how-targeting-maritime-corruption-can-save-and-generate-millions-annually-2730","How targeting maritime corruption can save and generate millions annually","https:\u002F\u002Fjam.baselgovernance.org\u002Fapi\u002Fassets\u002F06d4f05b-7dfe-457a-a9de-6d25aa0f9a0e?width=1000&height=650&format=webp&quality=80",[],[131,132],[134],[],2730,[131,132],[134],[],[],[24,131],[],"2024-12-06T17:01:48.000Z",[],"\u002Fresources\u002Fnews\u002Fhow-targeting-maritime-corruption-can-save-and-generate-millions-annually-2730",{"id":294,"body":295,"status":6,"type":10,"date":296,"slug":297,"title":298,"image":299,"countries":300,"topic":301,"activity":303,"tags":304,"nid":305,"topics":306,"activities":307,"authors":308,"images":309,"websites":310,"area":22,"programme":22,"language":187,"translations":311,"translation_of":22,"user_created":40,"date_created":312,"user_updated":190,"date_updated":313,"content":314,"link":315},10538,"J. Edward “Ned” Conway became Executive Secretary of the [Wolfsberg Group](https:\u002F\u002Fwolfsberg-group.org\u002F) on 1 November 2024, succeeding Alan Ketley. With its 12 member banks, the Wolfsberg Group is a globally respected source of expertise on financial crime risk management, setting industry standards and building bridges between financial institutions and other stakeholders. The Basel Institute serves as Secretariat to the Group, which is now in its 25th year.\n\nIn this Q&A, Ned challenges us to consider how we can make the fight against financial crimes more effective. He also highlights the value that the Wolfsberg Group can provide to the financial services industry, policymakers and law enforcement, with its global reach and technical knowledge of the financial crime landscape and financial industry.\n\n### What drives your career in countering financial crime?\n\nYou can read my [bio here](https:\u002F\u002Fwolfsberg-group.org\u002Fnews\u002F77\u002F), but I can highlight a couple of things that motivate me.\n\nFirst, my experiences working for the US Department of Defence in Iraq, in a unit focused on analysing and disrupting the financing of terrorist groups and insurgent networks. Most of the old-school ideas and methods we were trying were just not working. That made us ask: What are we _ultimately_ trying to achieve by countering threat finance? What plan or strategy will get us there more effectively?\n\nAs financial crime evolves, it remains vital to keep questioning our goals and the effectiveness of the measures we are using to achieve them. It’s a fascinating, ever-changing field.\n\nSecond, I’m an analyst at heart and love digging into data, so finance is a natural field. But I also relish personal interactions and am fascinated by psychology and behaviour, especially decision-making.\n\nAfter leaving the Department of Defence I studied for a PhD in international relations. During my field work in Central Asia, I saw the real-life impacts of corruption and financial crime on ordinary people and businesses. It was clear that financial crime compliance and risk management are not only interesting fields in themselves. They are also a chance to put the structural pressures in place to incentivise good behaviour, to make it easier for those in power to “do the right thing” and for ordinary people to feel the benefits.\n\nAnd third, properly managing financial crime risks can also have a positive impact on the environment, another area of focus I have been passionate about from a young age. Take illegal logging, illegal mining and wildlife trafficking in places like the Amazon. If financial institutions and law enforcement can do more to disrupt the finances of the organised crime groups profiting from these crimes, the impact on their operations will be significant. That’s positive for biodiversity and for the climate, as well as for local people.\n\n### What drew you to the Wolfsberg Group?\n\nFirst and foremost, it’s the people. It’s exhilarating to work with a group of individuals who are highly knowledgeable about the technical side of countering financial crime and just as passionate about doing it as me.\n\nSo who are we exactly? Our members represent 12 global banks. When you consider their correspondent banking networks, the majority of the US dollar, euro and pound sterling financial system relies on our member banks to process transactions. And these 12 banks collectively have hundreds of millions of customers in their own right, from individuals to large corporations across the world.\n\nPrimary delegates to the Group are usually the heads of the banks’ financial crime compliance divisions, and the secondary delegates are their deputies. Other senior bank staff specialised in, for example, complex investigations, fraud, virtual assets or sanctions form subject-matter expert working groups.\n\nWe also engage with external stakeholders like law enforcement, financial intelligence units, regulators and supervisors, and civil society, depending on the topic.\n\nIt’s safe to say that all of us see the importance and value of our work and want to get it right. That’s vital to our reputation as a trusted source of technical expertise on financial crime risk management.\n\nI pay tribute to Alan Ketley, Tracy Paradise, Hans-Peter Bauer, John Cusack, and other previous secretaries, chairs and members for developing this committed group not just of financial institutions but of people.\n\n### What does the Group do?\n\nIn essence, we act as a bridge between financial institutions and the needs and goals of policymakers and law enforcement.\n\nOn the policy side, we can contribute to shaping more effective laws, regulatory guidance and measures against financial crime. For example, if the EU is thinking of developing new regulations on payment transparency, we can provide constructive feedback on proposed measures and drafts. We can also help regulators and supervisors to responsibly cut red tape and foresee the consequences of deregulation.\n\nOn the law enforcement side, we exchange on investigative techniques, trends and typologies in financial crime. This helps financial institutions to hone their financial crime risk management and reporting frameworks. It also helps law enforcement and FIUs to understand how they can use banks’ information and capabilities more effectively.\n\n### How does your work translate to practical guidance?\n\nWe provide [practical frameworks and guidance](https:\u002F\u002Fwolfsberg-group.org\u002Fresources?type=cbddq-fccq) for the financial services industry as a whole.\n\nA prime example is the [Correspondent Banking Due Diligence Questionnaire](https:\u002F\u002Fwolfsberg-group.org\u002Fnews\u002F36) or CBDDQ. This is an industry standard for conducting reasonable due diligence before agreeing correspondent banking relationships. We have translated the related Guidance, Glossary and FAQs into various languages to make it more accessible.\n\nOther examples include a recent [Statement on Monitoring for Suspicious Activity](https:\u002F\u002Fwolfsberg-group.org\u002Fnews\u002F69). That line of work essentially outlines the responsible framework for innovation in a highly regulated sector, applying artificial and machine learning to improve our ability to support law enforcement and meet supervisory expectations.\n\n### How does the Group work?\n\nOur approach is to build trust and provide constructive feedback based on our technical expertise and deep understanding of the global financial services industry.\n\nWe are a consensus-based group and we do what we say. When our member banks agree on a document, like a statement or a set of guidance, we collectively commit to doing what we recommend in the document. That’s a very powerful statement. And building, finding, and maintaining that consensus takes constant care and management.\n\nOne area I’m keen on advancing is how we can better move from strategic alignment – high-level agreement on financial crime goals and measures – to operational gains, i.e. more effective systems in practice.\n\nFor example, it’s easy to say we should use artificial intelligence to improve systems for monitoring and reporting suspicious activities to the authorities. In practice, doing so will need things like testing, validation, analysing results, explaining how algorithms are working… technical steps that don’t make headlines but that are essential to making progress and doing so responsibly.\n\nWe’ll be doing more workshops and face-to-face interactions to advance those technical steps. That will also help us to tease out areas where there are legitimate differences of opinion between parties, and we can then focus our efforts on addressing those concerns.\n\n### What are the Group’s priorities?\n\nThematically, we continue to take a deep look at:\n\n*   Suspicious activity monitoring. As an industry, we put a huge amount of resources into monitoring and reporting suspicious activities to the competent authorities. But it is broadly recognised that the system is not achieving the desired results.\n*   How we assess risk. This includes applying a risk-based approach to financial crime compliance to avoid detrimental impacts on the underbanked, including non-profit organisations, improving financial inclusion while simultaneously prioritising resources to address clear financial crime risk.\n*   Fraud, especially “confidence scams”, where victims are convinced they are investing in an opportunity or relationship that turns to be completely false.\n\nWe are also very interested in better ways to measure and assess the effectiveness of our financial crime compliance efforts in general. We work with key regulatory authorities in the US, UK EU and other countries and regions as regulation is reformed.\n\n### What bridges do you see with the Basel Institute’s work?\n\n[Like the Basel Institute](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fabout), we are primarily focused on technical competence and building bridges between stakeholders, not advocacy in support of narrow interests.\n\nIn fact, the Wolfsberg Group is an early example of [Collective Action](https:\u002F\u002Fcollective-action.com\u002F) – bringing together different stakeholders in a sustained engagement to improve business integrity, or in our case, the management of financial crime risks. The Basel Institute has huge credibility in this space and contributed to the Group’s foundation 25 years ago.\n\nAnd beyond our alignment with the goals of the Basel Institute’s [asset recovery](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fasset-recovery\u002F) and [Green Corruption](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fgreen-corruption) workstreams, a clear point of interest is the [Basel AML Index](https:\u002F\u002Findex.baselgovernance.org\u002F). This tool for country-based financial crime risk assessments is a core aspect of any financial institution’s risk management process. Most banks use the Basel AML Index in their risk models.","2025-03-10","making-financial-crime-risk-management-work-for-all-insights-from-the-wolfsberg-group-2779","Making financial crime risk management work for all: Insights from the Wolfsberg Group","https:\u002F\u002Fjam.baselgovernance.org\u002Fapi\u002Fassets\u002Facf339c5-225b-42b7-bd8a-8a6ef363264f?width=1000&height=650&format=webp&quality=80",[],[302,131,132],"Anti-Money Laundering",[134],[],2779,[302,131,132],[134],[],[],[24,131],[],"2025-03-10T11:01:36.000Z","2026-04-27T21:01:58.000Z",[],"\u002Fresources\u002Fnews\u002Fmaking-financial-crime-risk-management-work-for-all-insights-from-the-wolfsberg-group-2779",{"id":317,"body":318,"status":6,"type":319,"date":320,"slug":321,"title":322,"image":323,"countries":324,"topic":325,"activity":327,"tags":330,"nid":331,"topics":332,"activities":334,"authors":335,"images":336,"websites":337,"area":22,"programme":22,"language":22,"translations":338,"translation_of":22,"user_created":40,"date_created":339,"user_updated":190,"date_updated":340,"content":341,"link":342},10512,"The 13th Public Edition of the [Basel AML Index](http:\u002F\u002Findex.baselgovernance.org\u002F) highlights a gradual improvement in national systems to counter money laundering – at least in terms of technical compliance with global standards, and among countries with long-standing weaknesses. But the effectiveness of anti-money laundering systems in practice remains alarmingly low in the face of evolving threats from fraud and other complex, often transnational financial crimes.\n\nDeveloped and maintained by the Basel Institute on Governance since 2012, the Basel AML Index is an independent, data-based ranking and risk assessment tool for money laundering and related financial crime risks around the world.\n\nAt the heart of the Basel AML Index is a ranking of countries and jurisdictions according to their vulnerability to money laundering and related financial crimes and their capacity to counter these threats. This year 164 countries are included in the Public Edition, with Myanmar, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo receiving the highest risk scores and Finland, Iceland and San Marino the lowest.\n\n### Compliance up, effectiveness down\n\nThe [2024 Basel AML Index report](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fpublications\u002Fbasel-aml-index-2024) highlights current trends and debates around the fight against financial crime, including:\n\n1\\. A 12 percentage point improvement in technical compliance with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards over the last decade among countries with available data.\n\n*   Specific areas of improvement include targeted financial sanctions, measures to address higher-risk countries and politically exposed persons, and customer due diligence by designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs) like lawyers, accountants and gambling businesses.\n*   Countries with major deficiencies appear to be catching up, in some cases as a result of being on the FATF’s so-called grey list of jurisdictions subject to increased monitoring.\n\n2\\. The effectiveness of anti-money laundering measures globally as measured by the FATF remains stagnant at just 28 percent, down from 30 percent in 2021.\n\n*   The gains in technical compliance with the standards are not translating into effective investigations, prosecutions or sanctions for financial crimes – the weakest spot at 20 percent effectiveness.\n*   Beneficial ownership transparency remains a major weakness at 21 percent effectiveness, down by a percentage point from last year.\n*   And despite significant investments in anti-money compliance by the private sector, globally the average effectiveness of preventive measures and suspicious transaction reporting by financial institutions and DNFBPs has sunk to 22 percent from 24 percent last year.\n\n3\\. The inclusion of fraud indicators in the Basel AML Index methodology this year has increased risk scores for high-income countries and those with large financial centres.\n\n*   But there are too many unknown unknowns – no clear definition or standards, no methodology for assessing risk, severe underreporting and numerous constantly changing typologies.\n*   If we are to get a grip on the rising threats from fraud and its impacts on people, businesses and governments everywhere, global coordination on standards, definitions and data collection are urgently needed.\n\n### What does success look like?\n\nKateryna Boguslavska, who leads the development of the Basel AML Index and provides technical assistance to countries seeking to understand and address their anti-money laundering deficiencies, comments that:\n\n> The stark gap between technical compliance and effectiveness with regard to FATF standards raises concerns about whether investments in anti-money laundering systems are leading to tangible results. But financial crime is a multi-dimensional and fast-evolving phenomenon with significant social, political and economic implications. We cannot assess success by looking at systems in isolation; it’s important to consider broader factors such as financial transparency, civil liberties, media freedom and judicial independence.\n> \n> That’s why the Basel AML Index provides data on these factors, alongside indicators of fast-evolving threats like environmental crime and fraud.\n\nUltimately, the Basel AML Index report calls for a shared reimagining of the fight against financial crime as key to achieving broader societal goals relating to peace, justice and sustainable development, rather than limiting our ambitions to the protection of financial systems and economies.\n\n### About the Basel AML Index\n\nThe Basel AML Index is an independent, data-based ranking and risk assessment tool for money laundering and related financial crime risks around the world. It provides risk scores based on data from 17 publicly accessible sources. The risk scores cover five domains relevant to assessing risks of money laundering at the country or jurisdiction level:\n\n*   Quality of AML\u002FCFT\u002FCPF framework\n*   Corruption and fraud\n*   Financial transparency and standards\n*   Public transparency and accountability\n*   Legal and political risks\n\nThe Basel AML Index is developed and maintained by the Basel Institute on Governance through its International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR). ICAR benefits from core funding from the Governments of Jersey, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and the UK.\n\n### Learn more\n\n*   The full Basel AML Index report, plus free-to-use images and regional maps, are available on the [Basel AML Index website (Downloads)](https:\u002F\u002Findex.baselgovernance.org\u002Fdownload).\n*   A [launch event](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.zoom.us\u002Fwebinar\u002Fregister\u002F4717326073898\u002FWN_ZHkZWJb4S8ul34JIEgIZjQ) and panel discussion will take place on Wednesday 4 December at 15:00 CET.\n*   Representatives of public, non-profit, multilateral and academic organisations, as well as the media, may request free access to the Basel AML Index [Expert Edition and Expert Edition Plus](https:\u002F\u002Findex.baselgovernance.org\u002Fexpert-edition). These subscription-based services offer comprehensive data on the 17 indicators that make up the Basel AML Index score and allow for a more in-depth analysis of individual countries, regions or risk factors.","News","2024-12-02","global-fight-against-money-laundering-progress-on-paper-success-elusive-2721","Global fight against money laundering: progress on paper, success elusive","https:\u002F\u002Fjam.baselgovernance.org\u002Fapi\u002Fassets\u002F11eab54b-4afb-4101-bffa-2fbfb28d7f56?width=1000&height=650&format=webp&quality=80",[],[302,326],"Asset Recovery",[328,329],"Basel AML Index","Media releases",[],2721,[302,333],"Asset Recovery and Enforcement",[328,329],[],[],[24,328],[],"2024-12-02T08:36:01.000Z","2026-05-29T22:22:33.000Z",[],"\u002Fresources\u002Fnews\u002Fglobal-fight-against-money-laundering-progress-on-paper-success-elusive-2721",{"id":344,"body":345,"status":6,"type":10,"date":346,"slug":347,"title":348,"image":349,"countries":350,"topic":352,"activity":353,"tags":355,"nid":364,"topics":365,"activities":366,"authors":367,"images":369,"websites":370,"area":22,"programme":22,"language":22,"translations":371,"translation_of":22,"user_created":40,"date_created":372,"user_updated":190,"date_updated":373,"content":374,"link":375},9609,"The following summary reflects key messages emerging from the [Harnessing the intangible: enhancing integrity during crises](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fnews\u002F25-march-oecd-knowledge-partner-event-enhancing-integrity-during-crises) Knowledge Partner session on 25 March 2021 at the 2021 OECD Global Anti-Corruption & Integrity Forum.\n\nHosted by the Basel Institute and moderated by Claudia Baez Camargo, Head of Public Governance, the event explored how practitioners could tailor approaches to strengthen integrity during an emergency response to counter recurrent social norms and informal practices.\n\nThe panel incorporated a wide range of perspectives from health, anti-corruption and behavioural research, featuring Dina Balabanova and Eleanor Hutchinson of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, David Jackson of the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, and Ruth Persian of The Behavioural Insights Team.\n\n### Why aren’t traditional approaches to tackling corruption and promoting integrity working?\n\nA key takeaway from the session is that mainstream anti-corruption interventions focusing on accountability, transparency and law enforcement measures have not been as effective as we would like in combatting corruption.\n\nCould this be because we don’t make enough effort to understand the local context, social networks and power dynamics in the target countries as well as individual actors’ experience and motivation? A growing body of evidence suggests so.\n\nFor example, [recent research](https:\u002F\u002Fresearchonline.lshtm.ac.uk\u002Fid\u002Feprint\u002F4659908\u002F1\u002FACE-WorkingPaper014-NigeriaAbsenteeism-190916.pdf) carried out in Nigeria by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine reveals that the causes of absenteeism among Nigerian health workers are much more complex than one might expect. They encompass economic pressures, structural inefficacies and managerial\u002Forganisational dynamics, with the research also emphasising that these are shaped by sociocultural factors and political relationships.\n\nWithout a more nuanced analysis of how and why people behave as they do and the context in which they make decisions, laws and rules alone are unlikely to change the drivers of corrupt behaviour. Initiatives are increasingly focusing on improving health system governance, but thinking about the “upstream” social and political factors is essential.\n\nExploring social norms can offer insights into the drivers of unethical\u002Fcorrupt decision-making. For instance, the Basel Institute’s current [research project in Tanzania under the GI-ACE programme](https:\u002F\u002Face.globalintegrity.org\u002Fprojects\u002Ftanzhealth\u002F) shines a spotlight on, among other things, social norms related to returning favours or serving family members first. Health workers are put under pressure to make special concessions to their kinship or those who offer gifts. If people follow these informal rules, merely changing or strengthening laws or rules will not get rid of the underlying drivers of corruption or violations of integrity.\n\nThe message is clear: when designing interventions, it is critical to first understand the context, including what social norms are at play and which behavioural and structural barriers to behaviour change the different actors face.\n\n### Are we less rational than we think – and even worse in a crisis?\n\nTraditional economic thinking has assumed that human beings are rational agents acting according to an analytical, cost\u002Fbenefit analysis. In his best-selling book, _Thinking, Fast and Slow_, Daniel Kahneman referred to this as slow “System 2” thinking. In contrast, System 1 thinking is fast and automatic, and more susceptible to environmental influences and biases than we think.\n\nHowever, policies and systems are often designed with only System 2 in mind. Furthermore, in situations where decision-makers act under a lot of pressure and stress – as is the cases in crises –  evidence shows that System 1 is most likely to take over when making decisions.\n\nThis has to be taken into account when designing interventions. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, interventions could support medical staff and policy makers by simplifying how information is displayed and framed. For instance, a [study](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.bi.team\u002Fblogs\u002Fredesigning-hospital-prescription-charts-to-reduce-prescribing-errors\u002F) showed how changing how prescription instructions are framed can lead a significant reduction in prescription errors in UK’s National Health Service (NHS).\n\nIt seems likely that this finding can be generalised: by providing information at the right time and an easily accessible format and by simplifying decision-making, people working under a lot of stress are supported to take the right course of action.\n\n### Do crises amplify integrity issues? Or is “crisis” mode quite normal?\n\nThe pandemic has merely exacerbated the fact that health systems around the world are in a constant state of crisis, with regular shortages and understaffing. This generates different pressures on staff workers, with a direct link to integrity issues.\n\nOne issue relates to the political economy of a country. For instance, sanctioning health workers for corrupt behaviour if they enjoy political protection may lead to severe consequences – like job losses – for head of departments. An intervention that does not take this into account would do more harm than good.\n\nGendered norms and expectations also drive behaviour. In the case of absenteeism among Nigerian health workers mentioned above, for example, female nurses are often expected to juggle their shifts with family care and contribution to the household economy (e.g. farming).\n\nMerely changing rules or management without understanding people’s behaviour and the expectations they face in a complex system will not yield the expected results. As for political power, understanding how social and family networks are structured and operate is key to designing effective anti-corruption interventions.\n\n### Harnessing behavioural insights to drive change\n\nA solid [political economy analysis](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fpublic-governance\u002Ftechnical-assistance) will help build understanding among anti-corruption practitioners – but what should they do with that understanding? The next step is to understand how to use these insights into different networks to design more effective interventions. This is the idea behind another GI-ACE project led by the Basel Institute on [Harnessing Informality: Designing Anti-Corruption Network Interventions and Strategic Use of Legal Instruments](https:\u002F\u002Face.globalintegrity.org\u002Fwp-content\u002Fuploads\u002F2019\u002F09\u002FBC_ext_project.pdf).\n\nTo continue with the example of absenteeism among health workers, individuals who are negatively affected by this (more working hours, more pressure due to the added activities related to the Covid-19 responses) may be more likely to support an intervention to address the issue.\n\nSo, clearly identifying networks of allies with a reason to support a change in favour of integrity should be an essential step of any intervention.\n\n### How social norms affect behaviour – for better or for worse\n\nAnother interesting point raised during the session was how we all belong to different reference groups which form part of our identity. Social norms stem from these reference groups and influence our behaviours in different ways.\n\nWe follow descriptive norms because they relate to common behaviour, whereas we respect injunctive norms because we think that _others_ think these behaviours are socially appropriate. For example, assisting our family materially because we think that others perceive this as the right thing to do. \n\nThese last norms generate social pressure as we are scared by the social sanctions we would incur by violating them. Social norms become particularly salient during crises when, as mentioned above, System 1 thinking is likely to take over in stressful situations where actors need to make fast decisions under a lot of pressure.\n\nRather than changing social norms, perhaps the objective in the Covid-19 crisis and more generally should therefore be relieve individuals from the pressures generated by the norms.\n\nNorms of elites need careful consideration. Cases of decision-makers violating social distancing norms may make it permissible to violate health guidelines in the eyes of the public. However, research shows that trend-setters – i.e. people within groups leading by example by adopting virtuous behaviours associated with social norms (like respecting social distancing) – play an equally important role in changing undesirable behaviours associated with social norms. Revealing information about these virtuous behaviours within reference groups can incentivise others to change their own behaviour vis-à-vis a social norm.\n\nAnother option that requires careful consideration and handling – and a deep understanding of political economy, behaviours and norms – is for governments to publicly condemn corrupt behaviour using normative interventions, for example naming and shaming individuals who violated covid-19 regulations.\n\n### Can social norms be changed?\n\nSo: relieving individuals from the pressures generated by social norms is one avenue for intervention. Another common form of intervention aims to correct people’s incorrect perceptions of social norms. More drastically, perhaps some norms need to change in order to form the basis of a stronger, healthier and more resilient society. Is this possible?\n\nThe short answer that emerged at the session is yes. Three elements must be present:\n\n*   People need a reason to change.\n*   People must trust each other.\n*   A mechanism must be in place to let change occur (e.g. a civic space).\n\nThis implies that changing social norms to encourage integrity is a collective effort. It is also an immensely challenging one – but nonetheless essential if we wish to enhance integrity during crises as well as during “business as usual”.\n\n### Learn more\n\n*   Read more about our Public Governance team’s [research on social norms and related factors here](https:\u002F\u002Fbaselgovernance.org\u002Fpublic-governance\u002Fresearch-projects).\n*   Learn more about the UK-funded Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) programme and its two components: [SOAS-ACE](https:\u002F\u002Face.soas.ac.uk\u002F) (led by SOAS University of London) and [GI-ACE](https:\u002F\u002Face.globalintegrity.org\u002F) (led by Global Integrity).\n*   Read a publication on the [London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)](LSHTM)  website by Dr Dina Balabanova (LSHTM), Professor Obinna Onwujekwe (University of Nigeria) and Dr Eric Umar (University of Malawi) on [Understanding and eliminating health sector corruption impeding UHC at district level in Nigeria and Malawi: institutions, individuals and incentives](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.lshtm.ac.uk\u002Fresearch\u002Fcentres-projects-groups\u002Funderstanding-and-eliminating-health-systems-corruption).\n*   Watch a [video recording of the session on YouTube](https:\u002F\u002Fyoutu.be\u002FffVS76k4qNg).","2021-04-14","how-to-enhance-integrity-during-crises-lessons-from-behavioural-science-2008","How to enhance integrity during crises: lessons from behavioural science","https:\u002F\u002Fjam.baselgovernance.org\u002Fapi\u002Fassets\u002F82be3e12-2443-4f36-b39b-0141a42f1473?width=1000&height=650&format=webp&quality=80",[351],7343,[164,165],[17,167,134,354,18],"Anti-corruption interventions",[356,360],{"tags_id":357},{"id":358,"name":359},848,"Behavioural science",{"tags_id":361},{"id":362,"name":363},1381,"Health",2008,[181],[17,167,134,354,18],[368],1196,[],[24],[],"2022-05-26T22:53:12.000Z","2026-05-07T21:29:42.000Z",[],"\u002Fresources\u002Fnews\u002Fhow-to-enhance-integrity-during-crises-lessons-from-behavioural-science-2008",{"left":377,"top":377,"width":378,"height":378,"rotate":377,"vFlip":379,"hFlip":379,"body":380},0,20,false,"\u003Cpath fill=\"currentColor\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"M17 10a.75.75 0 0 1-.75.75H5.612l4.158 3.96a.75.75 0 1 1-1.04 1.08l-5.5-5.25a.75.75 0 0 1 0-1.08l5.5-5.25a.75.75 0 1 1 1.04 1.08L5.612 9.25H16.25A.75.75 0 0 1 17 10\" clip-rule=\"evenodd\"\u002F>",1780676491757]