High Level Panel on IFFs leads Promotion of the Implementation of CAPAR and Africa’s Asset Recovery Agenda at the Global Level

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Washington DC,

The High-Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) from Africa and its secretariat – Coalition for Dialogue on Africa (CoDA), in collaboration with the Working Group on the Implementation of the Common African Position on Asset Recovery (CAPAR) and Albany State University, Georgia, USA will be holding a workshop to promote the Understanding and Implementation of the Common African Position on Asset Recovery (CAPAR) at the global level.

In this regard, a delegation has been organized and will be led by Barrister Akere T. Muna, member of the High-Level Panel on IFFs from Africa and Co-Chair of CAPAR Working Group. The delegation will be facilitating the workshop on the margins of the 2022 International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) which begins today 6th December and will carry on until 10th December, 2022.

In addition to the workshop which will be held on 9 December, the delegation will be engaging numerous non-African stakeholders at the conference in an effort to improve understanding of CAPAR and consolidate support for its holistic implementation as well as Africa’s recovery agenda at the global level. The workshop, which takes place in Washington DC, USA this year, will feature representatives from the civil society, government and non-government institutions, as well as financial regulatory entities from all over the world.

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The delegation, which is composed of members of the CAPAR Working Group include Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices & Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Mr. Stephen Karangizi – Past Director and CEO of the African Legal Support Facility (ALSF), Adv. Donald Deya, Chief Executive Officer, Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU), and representatives from CoDA, the Secretariat of the HLP on IFFs from Africa.

As part of its message, the delegation will highlight several key messages during all of its respective engagements and the planned workshop. These messages include the CAPAR being the bedrock for Africa’s legal instrument and technical framework for negotiating the return of assets and funds taken illicitly from the continent and hosted in foreign jurisdictions. It will also breakdown the four pillars of CAPAR.

CAPAR aims to assist African Union Member States to identify, repatriate and effectively manage these assets in a manner that respect their sovereignty. It outlines Africa’s priorities for asset recovery in four pillars: detection and identification of illicitly removed assets; recovery and return of illicitly removed assets; management of recovered assets; and cooperation and partnerships to harmonize the process of identification and recovery.

Signed: Mrs. Azuka Ogugua
Spokesperson, ICPC