On 1-4 October 2024 the IIJ conducted its first Training of Trainers for West African Practitioners working in the field of countering the financing of terrorism (CFT). The training became the 6th event in the series of programmes the IIJ has implemented for West African practitioners since 2021, aimed at building capacities of investigators, prosecutors, judges, financial analysts and regulatory authorities, as well as promoting interagency cooperation and public-private dialogue in the area of CFT. The IIJ is grateful to the Government of Germany for funding this important multi-year engagement.
IIJ’s programming for West African practitioners started as a series of regional workshops in Cote d’Ivoire focused on reducing the vulnerabilities of Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs). It then progressed to include a much wider range of topics and formats, focusing on building capacities of participating countries to address specific CFT-related challenges using techniques that can be implemented well after the IIJ’s direct engagement.
The Training of Trainers (ToT) equipped outstanding IIJ alumni with advanced skills on both CFT substance, namely identifying, disrupting and preventing terrorist financing, and teaching methodologies to develop and implement their own training programmes in response to country-specific and regional terrorist financing risks.
The ToT hosted 20 CFT practitioners from Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo who have already participated in IIJ programmes and demonstrated the willingness and ability to become knowledge multipliers in their countries. Participation was also open to Maltese and Italian CFT practitioners who combined the roles of participants and speakers in sessions on sharing European CFT expertise.
The four-day training course, conducted in person in Valletta, Malta, combined thematic modules on high-priority terrorist financing issues and specific sessions on training methodologies and programme design. Break-out sessions offered each participant the opportunity to develop the outline of a workshop on a high-priority theme that they chose to deliver in their home jurisdiction, guided by one of three expert CFT trainers. Participants chose a range of themes, including international information exchange to support CFT cases, suspicious transaction reporting for notaries, and supervision and compliance in the mining sector. On the final day, each participant delivered a training module to the entire group, receiving constructive feedback on both substance and technique.
The IIJ will stay in touch with the ToT alumni and will support them to the extent possible in their capacity building efforts.