On 14 September, in Paris, BCSDN organized the first regional meeting of the Western Balkans and Turkey Expert Hub on AML/CFT. The meeting was organized with the support of the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), as part of the Global AML/CFT Expert Hub meeting for 2022.
The meeting’s aim was to enable a closer regional exchange to identify common challenges and to concretize a regional action plan for the recently initiated WBT Expert Hub on AML/CFT. With participants from all 7 WBT countries, the meeting provided a great opportunity to share experiences and strategies for engagement and advocacy on the national level, including tips for the relationship with government, concrete examples of how relevant FATF and R8 processes went, how regional/international supporters and bodies were approached, and their impact on the efforts in this regard, what arguments did and did not work as part of the advocacy efforts, etc. Following this exchange, the participants discussed the top regional priorities for the coming year, including what are the key needs to address these challenges and what are the potential approaches and activities to be organized in this regard. Concrete actions were proposed, including the need for enhanced multistakeholder engagement in the region with FUIs, banks, MONEYVAL, as well as on how to go about the FATF consultations, regional research and advocacy, and a tentative plan for regional actions was made.
A regional background document with the key country issues, needs, and challenges in each of the seven countries of the Western Balkan and Turkey is available here.