During the Forum of the heads of FIUs meeting held in Nairobi on January 17 – 19 at the launch of the AML/CFT ESCAY Project, it was agreed that the meeting of Heads of FIUs should be held bi-annually. In this regard, the EU and the AML-CFT ESCAY Project, in collaboration with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Zimbabwe, organised the second Forum under this Project to be held on 09-10 October 2023 at the Rainbow Towers Hotel and Conference Centre, Harare, Zimbabwe.
The Forum has brought together all the Heads of FIUs of the beneficiary countries and invited observers particularly the FSRBs of the regional and other inter-governmental organizations.
The overall objective of the forum is to facilitate regional cooperation and coordination, strengthen experience sharing, promote mutual understanding on ML/FT risks and challenges in the region as well as common criminal threats generating illicit finances. The forum will also provide a platform to reflect on the achievements of the Project and discuss future areas of technical support.
During the forum, the Heads of FIUs are expected to:
- deliberate on selected thematic areas about FATF standards on effectiveness and the challenges of National AML/CFT/CPF system to comply with the international standards;
- discuss year one accomplishments of the Project, challenges/limitations encountered and way forward;
- Outline a way forward on priority capacity building support areas the region needs to strengthen national AML/CFT/CPF systems, deter TOC and illicit financial flows to be used as input to the anticipated the next phase; and possibly share or sign a memorandum of understanding (MoUs) or have bilateral discussions among the Heads of FIUs.
