Countering the financing of terrorism
Countering the financing of terrorism. Photo: UN Photo/Stuart Price
“Recent terrorist attacks around the world demonstrate that financial flows continue to reach terrorist groups from both illegal and legal means. A concerted effort to redouble the world’s attention on stopping the financing of terrorism is therefore a vital topic.”
-- UN Office of Counter-Terrorism Under-Secretary-General Vladimir Voronkov in his statement to the Security Council on the Adoption of Resolution 2462 (2019) on Countering the Financing of Terrorism, 28 March 2019
Suppressing all forms of terrorist financing
With the intensification of the terrorist threat over the recent years and the concurrent evolution of terrorist financing typologies, the UN Security Council has adopted additional resolutions, often under Chapter VII, to address new avenues of terrorist financing, including by targeting the nexus between terrorists and organized crime groups and tackling fundraising through kidnapping for ransom. In Resolution 2462 (2019), the Security Council expressed concern at the flow of funds to terrorists and the need to suppress all forms of terrorist financing.
Countering the financing of terrorism programming
The UN Office of Counter-Terrorism and its partners are strengthening their capacity to meet interested States’ requests for technical assistance in the area of countering terrorist financing. These include a broad range of pressing Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) topics such as protecting the nonprofit organization sector, sharing financial intelligence, promoting public-private partnerships, conducting sectoral risk assessments, and other priority topics identified by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and FATF-style regional bodies. The capacity of national authorities and relevant stakeholders to combat the financing of terrorism within their jurisdictions and regionally is especially important.
The Global Programme on Detecting, Preventing and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT Programme) was launched in 2020 to step up UNOCT/UNCCT efforts in this area as mandated by the General Assembly’s Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and its review resolutions, and the Security Council, including through resolutions 1373 (2001) and 2462 (2019).
This builds on the capacity-building programme on Terrorist Designations and Asset Freezing that, since March 2015 provided technical assistance and training to Member States (national regulatory agencies, financial intelligence units, relevant ministries and private sector institutions) and regional bodies on the effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions against terrorism and terrorism financing, as well as supported Member States and regional bodies in adopting mechanisms to safeguard their financial systems and address terrorism-financing techniques.