Tools & Networks
Asset recovery in a technical sense is the return of money stolen through corruption from one country and hidden in another. At CiFAR we take a more holistic approach. For us, asset recovery encompasses not only the return of that money, but also ensuring that the process itself contributes to preventing corruption, tackling the structures that allow for illicit financial flows, and building open and accountable governance systems.
On this page, you can find tools and networks available to assist civil society in tackling asset recovery and embedding it as part of a process to strengthen governance and participation.
Tools
Civil Society Principles
In recent years, civil society has come together to discuss how asset recovery can be more effective, more transparent, more accountable and more participatory. While the United Nation Convention Against Corruption contains some guidance, alongside several international principles that have been developed, such as the GFAR principles, these do not provide detailed idea for key asset recovery topics. Across four sets of Principles, civil society has come together to outline best practice frameworks for asset return, asset management, anti-corruption sanctions, and victims.
Guides
We have produced a number of guides for civil society engagement in asset recovery. These cover areas from introductions to civil society work on asset recovery, to guides to monitoring recovered assets, and manuals for investigating financial crime.
Networks
National and cross-border collaboration between authorities, between authorities and civil society, and amongst civil society is essential to effective, transparent and participatory asset recovery.
Global Civil Society Coalition for the UNCAC's Asset Recovery Working Group
The UNCAC Coalition’s Asset Recovery working group seeks to facilitate discussions, exchange information and joint advocacy among civil society experts. It is co-chaired by CiFAR and Transparency International France.
CAPAR Civil Society Network
The CAPAR Civil Society Network works collectively for joint advocacy for the Common Africa Position on Asset Recovery and coordinates monitoring of national level implementation of the CAPAR. The objective of the network is joint advocacy for the CAPAR and coordinated monitoring of national level implementation of the CAPAR.
Investigate
Since 2017, we have run investigative journalism support programmes that have trained and mentored over 150 journalists and supported more than 90 stories. Our focus is on cross-border stories, that investigate the issue from multiple angles. All our trainings include journalists from different countries and regions and the stories we support are cross-border.