Today, CiFAR has launched its new strategy – Ready for Action. Our strategy builds on the work we have done since 2016 to support more citizen and civil society engagement in asset recovery and looks to further position us as leaders in forward thinking about transparency, accountability and participation in the recovery of the proceeds of corruption.
The development of our 2024-2027 strategy comes at an exciting time for CiFAR. Our role and situation have changed substantially since the beginning of our last strategy. Between 2020 and 2023, we focused primarily on networking civic actors and supporting the capacity of CSOs and journalists to engage with asset recovery. While continuing with this work, we have shifted towards more direct engagement in policy discussions and advocacy for reform over the past four years. This has enabled us to advance global, regional and national agendas around topics essential to accountable, transparent and participatory asset recovery, including asset management, return mechanisms and confiscation tools. This has built on collective action with our partners and high-quality research.
We have also physically expanded in terms of people and locations. Several new staff members have joined since the inception of our last strategy and we have set up stronger governance structures, with our first international board constituted under the last strategy and continuing to provide expert guidance and oversight into the new one. We further established our second CiFAR office – in Nairobi – as a sign of our commitment to supporting asset recovery globally.
The asset recovery field has also seen several positive developments. Compared to the start of our last strategy and, looking back to CiFAR’s founding, there are more civil society actors engaged in asset recovery and making strong contributions to international and national returns. There are also many more cases and transparency around those cases has improved immeasurably. Civil society is also now leading the way, with forward looking policies and research driving the debate rather than solely reacting to the uncovering of new cases. At the same time, grand corruption is still taking place, important loopholes allowing the corrupt to hide their wealth overseas are not being closed fast enough, and destinations for that wealth are shifting to less cooperative jurisdictions.
We are then at a time of exciting developments, with still a lot to do. With our new 2024 – 2027 strategy, we’re ready to take on those developments and work collectively for accountable, transparent and participatory asset recovery worldwide.
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