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GIABA ORGANIZES TRAINING FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTER-FINANCING OF TERRORISM POLICIES
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GIABA ORGANIZES TRAINING FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTER-FINANCING OF TERRORISM POLICIES
The Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) is organizing a weeklong training for the development and Empowerment of Counter-Financing of Terrorism (CFT) Policies and Mechanisms in GIABA member States from February 26 to March 1, 2024 at NAF Conference Centre, Abuja, Nigeria.
This is in response to the decisions of The ECOWAS Assembly of Heads of State and Government in its extraordinary session on September 14, 2019, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on terrorism to review the regional security situation and redefine priority areas of intervention to curb the spread of terrorist attacks in the region seriously. It urged regional and international actors to coordinate their efforts and pool initiatives to combat terrorism and its financing.
Given the instructions of the Authority of Heads of State and Government, and under the leadership of the ECOWAS Commission, a 2020-2024 priority action plan was developed, and component 6 is on Countering Terrorist Financing. To create all the conditions necessary for fully implementing this component, the GIABA Secretariat assessed the counter-financing of terrorism capacities of five ECOWAS countries most affected by terrorism. It developed a regional action plan through Technical Assistance Needs Assessment and a scoping of priority areas for action.
This program aims to provide countries with adequate and sustainable resources to enforce their counter-terrorist financing laws and regulations by Providing basic training material for the member countries' training institutes and engaging the civil society organizations of high-risk zones on the CFT Requirements.
Specifically, the objective of the project is to strengthen the expertise and technical skills of police, customs, magistrates, and other relevant officials in detecting and investigating complex cases of financial crime, particularly concerning financing terrorism.
About Fifty-One (51) senior officials from the CFT relevant agencies (financial intelligence units, investigative authorities of the police, immigration control units, CFT-specialized
judges and prosecutors from GIABA Anglophone member States are expected to participate in the programme.
This project, supported by technical partners such as Interpol, The International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law (IIJ), UNODC, and ICTA-Jacqueville, will be attended by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), the National Counter-Terrorist Centre of Ghana (NCTC), and the EFCC. The GIABA Secretariat and regional and international experts will deliver the technical training in the programme.