Publications

Protecting Non-Profit Organizations from Terrorism Financing Abuse

Author : Tracey Durner and Victor Kipkoech
Date : October 2023

Developed with the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), the report examines regional efforts to protect non-profit organizations (NPOs) from terrorism financing abuse. It includes a heat map of strengths and weaknesses in implementing international standards from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and offers reflections on ensuring measures do not disrupt or discourage NPO activity.

The report notes weak compliance with FATF’s Recommendation 8 on NPOs and provides further detail on what specific elements of Recommendation 8 are challenging for APG members, finding room to improve on the conduct of inclusive and evidence-based risk assessments of potential NPO abuse for terrorism financing and to strengthen and sustain outreach and engagement between government and NPOs.

The report also analyzes how compliance is being evaluated across the region, with its findings used to inform amendment of the FATF standards. It finds areas of misunderstanding or misinterpretation related to risk-based supervision for NPOs and notes limited consideration of how CFT measures may disrupt or discourage legitimate NPO activities.

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