Corruption and fraud risks in public procurement are a concern all over the world – including Bulgaria, where scandals around infrastructure and procurement projects damage trust in government, drain the public budget and may also affect EU development funds.

At the Basel Institute we connect our IT, eLearning and training activities closely. The result is more effective and efficient capacity building that takes advantage of technological advances while keeping trainees’ learning experience at the centre.

Better management of public infrastructure projects could save significant amounts of taxpayers’ money and result in better buildings, roads and bridges. But the public officials managing the projects are often unaware of academic frameworks and tools that could help them to manage the investments more efficiently and transparently.

A new academic course developed by our Subnational Public Finance Management Strengthening Programme (Programa GFP) and the University of Piura seeks to address that issue for public officials in Peru.

Mozambique faces critical infrastructure challenges – and opportunities – across all areas of its economy.

Yet the type of high-value procurement and infrastructure projects needed to boost development in the country are well known to be vulnerable to corruption. Risk factors include the high complexity, large transactions and multi-party negotiations that require close cooperation between the public and private sectors.

Shell companies, trusts and other corporate structures allow criminals to hide their illicit money abroad, often in offshore financial centres with poor beneficial ownership transparency. Officers seeking to investigate and prosecute transnational corruption cases need to understand these structures and how to cooperate with foreign jurisdictions.

From 15–19 May 2023, our International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) training team was at the National Institute of Justice in Sofia, Bulgaria to deliver our flagship training on Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery. The training is a crucial element of our collaboration with the Bulgarian government to assist in combatting corruption and recovering stolen public funds.

Phyllis Atkinson has led the training team of our International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) since 2010, having joined ICAR in 2009. The team’s work is essential to ICAR’s mission to support partner countries in developing their capabilities to investigate corruption and recover stolen assets.

Fifty-eight members of Ecuador’s criminal justice agencies have undergone intensive training on financial investigations and asset recovery over the last two weeks.

An intensive training programme of our International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) in Zambia has brought fresh impetus to the country’s fight against corruption.

The financial investigations and asset recovery training programme, held in collaboration with the Zambian Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), brought together participants from a wide range of law enforcement and oversight bodies.

Malawi has taken another positive step towards protecting the country’s wildlife, forests and other natural resources from illegal exploitation facilitated by corrupt practices.  

Senior officers from Malawi’s main environmental and law enforcement agencies came together on 15-17 February 2023 for a three-day workshop led by the Basel Institute’s Green Corruption team. Together, the officers explored how to conduct systematic corruption risk assessments and develop targeted corruption risk mitigation plans for their agencies.