The Basel Institute on Governance is an independent, international

non-profit organisation A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

dedicated to preventing and combating

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...

and other financial crimes and to strengthening

governance Governance is the overall complex system or framework of Process, processes, functions, structures, Social norm, rules, Law, laws and Norms (sociology), norms born out of the Interpersonal relationship, relationships, Social interaction, intera ...

around the world. The organisation was established in Basel, Switzerland in 2003 by Professor

Mark Pieth Mark Pieth (born 9 March 1953) is Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Basel, Switzerland and a prominent anti-corruption expert. Pieth's career as a legal expert, defence lawyer, judge and compliance advisor includes several roles on th ...

. It has a regional office for Latin America in

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

, Peru, and field staff based in several countries including in Indonesia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. The Basel Institute is an Associated Institute of the

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...

. It is an Institute of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme Network. It is known for producing the Basel AML Index, an annual ranking for measuring and comparing countries' risk of money laundering and terrorist financing.

Structure and activities

The Basel Institute is registered as a Swiss foundation. It has over 100 staff (as of 2021). The organisation's activities are overseen by a Foundation Board comprising prominent experts in the fields of anti-corruption and law, from both the private sector and academia. The President of the Board is Peter Maurer and the Vice-President is Anne Peters. The Institute works with the public, private and non-governmental sectors through its various divisions and international centres of excellence in asset recovery.

International Centre for Asset Recovery

The Basel Institute's International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) assists partner countries in a broad spectrum of asset recovery matters with the primary aim of building the capacity of the country's institutions to trace and recover corruptly acquired assets from abroad. It provides intensive training courses to law enforcement, financial investigators, prosecutors and the judiciary of partner countries in topics including financial investigation, mutual legal assistance, interviewing skills for investigators and

money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...

using

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...

. The centre also provides technical assistance on cases and legal matters in partner countries, as well as support for policy reform. It has also published an open-access book on

illicit enrichment Illicit enrichment generally refers to a situation in which a person has enjoyed some sort of wealth that cannot or has not been justified as coming from a legitimate source of income. The exact definitions for illicit enrichment, and the terminolo ...

laws that target unexplained wealth, with an accompanying database of laws and guidance on proving illicit enrichment cases in court. The book is available for free in English, Spanish and French. Core donors to ICAR are the

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is an office-level agency in the federal administration of Switzerland, and a part of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Together with other federal offices, SDC is responsible for ...

, the UK

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. The office was created on 2 ...

, the

Principality of Liechtenstein Liechtenstein (, ; ; ), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein ( ), is a doubly landlocked German-speaking microstate in the Central European Alps, between Austria in the east and north and Switzerland in the west and south. Liechtenst ...

, the Government of Jersey and the

Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) is a directorate under the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is primarily concerned with offering development aid to international partners, but in matters regarding Norway's Inter ...

Private Sector engagement

The Basel Institute supports companies and multi-stakeholder groups with advice on anti-corruption

Collective Action Collective action refers to action taken together Advocacy group, by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective. It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences ...

initiatives. It hosts the B20 Collective Action Hub, an online platform for anti-corruption Collective Action resources under a mandate from the B20 group of global business leaders. Among other initiatives, the Basel Institute has collaborated with the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...

and

Transparency International Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil s ...

to develop the High Level Reporting Mechanism, an independent mechanism to quickly resolve alerts about suspected acts of corruption in public procurement projects. It is actively engaged in research and support for other Collective Action tools such as integrity pacts with the aim of making anti-corruption Collective Action a global compliance norm. The Siemens Integrity Initiative, a USD100 million-dollar fund created by

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

to fight corruption and fraud through Collective Action, education and training, has supported the Basel Institute's Collective Action work with multi-year grants in all three of its funding rounds. Additional funding partners in the past and present include the

Global Fund The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (or simply the Global Fund) is an international financing and partnership organization that aims to "attract, leverage and invest additional resources to end the epidemics of HIV/AIDS, tu ...

and the KBA NotaSys Integrity Fund. In addition, the Basel Institute's Compliance specialists provide advice on anti-corruption compliance and crisis management for companies and other organisations. A notable mandate in this field was Mark Pieth's appointment in November 2011 as chairman of the Independent Governance Committee tasked with overseeing improvements to governance and transparency of

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

Public Governance research

The Basel Institute's Public Governance team conducts research on the root causes of corruption, develops evidence-based anti-corruption approaches and provides training and assessments on relevant political and social aspects. It is known in particular for its work on social norms and informal governance structures that facilitate corrupt practices. Current research in these areas includes two major projects under the

DFID The Department for International Development (DFID) was a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom, from 1997 to 2020. It was responsible for administering foreign aid ...

-funded "Global Integrity Anti-Corruption Evidence Programme" on addressing bribery in the Tanzanian health sector: a behavioural approach and harnessing informality: Designing anti-corruption network interventions and strategic use of legal instruments.

Public Finance Management

Through the Basel Institute’s regional office in Peru, a team of specialists provides comprehensive support to 11 Peruvian local and regional governments to generate more effective, efficient and transparent use of public funds. The programme is funded by the Swiss

State Secretariat for Economic Affairs State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

through its economic cooperation and development programme in Peru and was extended for a second four-year term in December 2019.

Green Corruption programme

The Basel Institute implements a programme of work focused on applying anti-corruption and governance tools to environmental crimes including the illegal wildlife trade. As part of this effort, the Basel Institute partnered with the

on a series of public-private dialogues on topics of environmental crime, corruption and illicit trade.

Digital tools

The Basel Institute develops and maintains several digital tools to support anti-corruption compliance, financial investigation and policy decisions. The tools are projects of the International Centre for Asset Recovery and are designed for use by public and private sector actors as well as policymakers and academia. * Basel AML Index: An interactive country ranking and

risk assessment Risk assessment is a process for identifying hazards, potential (future) events which may negatively impact on individuals, assets, and/or the environment because of those hazards, their likelihood and consequences, and actions which can mitigate ...

tool for

and

terrorist financing Terrorism financing is the provision of funds or providing financial support to individual terrorists or non-state actors. Most countries have implemented measures to counter terrorism financing (CTF) often as part of their money laundering law ...

. The public ranking has been published annually since 2012 and reveals slow progress across the board in tackling money laundering risks. * Basel Open Intelligence: A targeted search tool for open-source research on people and organisations for compliance, due diligence and investigation. * Basel LEARN / eLearning courses: Free self-paced online courses on asset tracing, intelligence gathering, financial analysis, international cooperation and terrorist financing, and open-source intelligence, in several languages. Some courses have been developed in collaboration with the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units.{{Cite web, url=https://learn.baselgovernance.org/, title=Basel LEARN - Basel Institute on Governance online learning platform, website=learn.baselgovernance.org, access-date=2021-10-20

References

Anti-corruption organizations