OSCE holds meeting to discuss preventing abuse of non-profit organizations for terrorist financing

VIENNA, 11 September 2009 - The OSCE hosted a workshop in Vienna today on preventing the abuse of non-profit organizations to finance terrorism, bringing together more than 150 experts from governments, international organizations and civil society.

"The misuse of non-profit organizations is one among many possible methods used by terrorist financiers, but it deserves specific attention for an important reason: it is about terrorists perversely using, to their own advantage, institutions that are essential to vibrant, democratic and cohesive societies," said Deputy Permanent Representative Dionyssios Kyvetos, representing the Greek OSCE Chairmanship.

"Efforts to protect the non-profit sector against terrorist misuse are in the interest of all: state authorities, non-governmental organizations, donors, beneficiaries of charitable aid, society at large. The challenge is to strike the right approach that protects and promotes the freedom of association, while pursuing a key counter-terrorism objective."

Workshop participants discussed how they can work together to foster greater transparency and good governance in the non-profit sector, as the primary safeguard against terrorist abuses of non-profit organizations.

"Adequate legislation as well as effective oversight and law enforcement are indispensable to protect the non-profit sector from terrorist abuse," said Phil Cooper from the Charity Commission for England and Wales. "But at the same time, non-profit organizations themselves can do a lot in terms of self-regulation to increase transparency and generate confidence in their sector. A transparent non-profit sector is a credible and trusted sector."

Working to suppress terrorist financing is a pillar of the OSCE's comprehensive approach to countering terrorism. The workshop was based on Special Recommendation on Terrorist Financing VIII on non-profit organizations by the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and drew on earlier OSCE efforts to promote public-private partnerships in countering terrorism.

The workshop was organized by the OSCE's Action against Terrorism Unit and the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities, in partnership with the Charity Commission for England and Wales and the Basel Institute on Governance. The event was sponsored by the United States and the private risk intelligence firm World-Check.