We’ve had an amazing run in these three and a half months since the summer, with a calendar full of activities and exciting training sessions across multiple cities on the continent. For the record, we did it in an outstanding pace of more than 3 activities per month; sometimes 2 activities per week, and that’s to say 14 activities in 3 and half months!
Top on this list was our Second Heads of FIUs Meeting, held in Harare, Zimbabwe in the second week of October. We were delighted to bring together 29 Heads of FIUs or their delegates, from the beneficiary countries under the scope of our project. Over two days, we deliberated on mechanisms on how to prevent or exit as fast as possible from the ICRG process; we also discussed enhancing national coordination and also on new ways of enhancing regional cooperation and promoting mutual understanding of ML/FT risks and challenges in the region. And now being the mid-point of the project, we also reflected on the achievements of the project and discussed future areas of technical support for our beneficiary countries.
The Heads of FIU meeting was followed by our Steering Committee meeting, at the same venue. This meeting was necessary, especially for the project to report to the steering committee members, the detailed achievements of the project, state of the budget and submit the work plan for the upcoming months. It was the occasion also, to allow representatives of the European Commission to present to the invited stakeholders, the vision and the practicalities of the upcoming new phase of the project – which will be bigger in scope, in budget and in duration, but which is still under development. We will share in detail any news on the development of this new phase in the next issue of this newsletter…
We also undertook two major assignments in this past quarter: one was to respond to requests for special tailor-made technical assistance from five countries: South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Mozambique, and Madagascar.
Priority was given to these countries because they are either currently under the FATF/ICRG review or are on the verge of falling under the review process. The technical assistance programs we designed aimed to support these countries to comply with FATF standards and therefore to exit the review process or to avoid being grey-listed.
We completed the programs in some of the 5 countries but in some others, our special assistance is still ongoing. Our senior technical advisor, Tuemay Aregawi, who coordinated this tailor-made assistance, writes in more detail about this in another section of this newsletter.
The second major assignment was to facilitate the development of four Curricula on Financial Investigations for Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia; one for each country, fashioned to meet each country’s specific needs in Financial Investigations.
For each country, the four selected expert drafters in this exercise were drawn from the Police Investigation Unit, Police Training academy, Prosecution services and Financial Intelligence Unit; one from each institution. This was inspired after having successfully piloted the development of a curriculum on Financial Investigations for Kenya.
For us at the AML-CFT ESCAY Project, Curriculum development on financial investigations is one of our major long term objectives, as it will ensure sustainability of the gains made, beyond the life of the project. The curricula , drafted by “national officials for national participants”, will also ensure that investigators and prosecutors in each country will approach the financial investigation and prosecution of organised crimes from a harmonised perspective.
This month, we will have the official launch of these four curricula in Mombasa, Kenya. Each country will take home a document that will be used by upcoming law enforcement agencies and public prosecution officers, who will read from the same book on how to conduct financial investigations. We are very pleased by the commitment and ownership exhibited by the four countries.
In collaboration with other partners, we also co-organised two regional conferences; one for the Judiciary in Kenya and second, a regional workshop in Seychelles on enhancing interagency cooperation in partnership with ESAAMLG, organised for FIUs and law enforcement agencies from the ESAAMLG member countries.
Finally, we are sad to announce that our Project coordinator, Gaia Steinbecher, has left the project to pursue new pastures in Geneva. We are very grateful to Gaia for her unwavering service and commitment to the project over the last one year, and we wish her all the very best in her new job. A new coordinator will arrive soon, and we will keep you all posted on this.
And as this year ends, we wish you all our partners, colleagues, friends and all your loved ones, a wonderful festive season. We hope the holiday season will allow you to take a break from the demands of work and duty. And from all us at the AML-CFT ESCAY Project team, we send you our warmest regards for the New Year 2024!
