Objectives

The project aims to improve the capacity of G5 countries to understand, investigate and prosecute cross borders illicit flows linked to the financing of terrorism.

Components

• Provision of mentoring sessions to national authorities to strengthen compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations and support the implementation of prescribed measures from ML/FT National Risk Assessments and Mutual Evaluation reports.

• Delivery of awareness raising national trainings to government and private sectors on Money or Value transfer services (MVTS) abuses for ML/FT.

• Organization of regional workshops on financial disruption of terrorist groups (initial and advanced levels) for participants from FIU, Intelligence Services, Judiciary and law enforcement of the G5 Member States with focus on regional cooperation.

• Organization of regional cash courier training courses for border control officers, FIU, prosecution and law enforcement.

• Organization of a regional mock trial in application of the Sahel mutual legal assistance agreement to further enhance criminal justice practitioners’ capacity to investigate, prosecute and adjudicate financing of terrorism cases from a practical perspective.

Main achievements

UNODC focused on strengthening the fundamental pillars for AML/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) instruments in the region, including raising awareness on the use of Money Value Transfer Services for TF and the support for countries’ own assessment of their TF risks through drafting their TF national risk assessment reports. A total of 332 participants, including 37 women, have been trained/received mentoring. Particular accomplishments entail: i) Burkina Faso was able to draft a comprehensive TF National Risk Assessment Report which will feed their AML/CFT action plan and assist them in moving forward in the Financial Action Task Force’s International Co-operation Review Group process; ii) the G5 Sahel organized its first regional initiative on TF through a regional training workshop which mobilized different national stakeholders and members of the G5 Sahel Executive Secretariat on discussing and learning more about Financial Disruption applied to TF cases; iii) UNODC implemented the first workshop on targeted financial sanctions (TFS) pursuant to the resolution of the Security Council 1267 (1999) in the region. The event saw the participation of the resolution of the Council Monitoring Team from New York and representatives of the Government of Morocco. This activity allowed raising awareness of the countries involved on the role of TFS and their importance in the fight against terrorism financing, how better cooperating with UNSC Monitoring Team could support their Counter terrorism strategies and how they could best fulfill their obligations present in the resolution.

Impact

This project allows to address deficiencies identified in the Mutual Evaluation Reports; as well as to enhance regional cooperation to disrupt illicit cash flows and to investigate and prosecute financing of terrorism in the Sahel.

Regional workshop on targeted financial sanctions based on the resolution of the Security Council 1267 (1999), September 2023

MVTS Training – Mali and Niger, September 2022

G5 Sahel Financial Disruption Training, September 2022

G5 Sahel Financial Disruption Training, September 2022