Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia supported in disrupting terrorist financing

October 2022, Vienna, Austria: UNODC together with OSCE organized two train-the-trainer courses focused on furthering the skills of officials from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and North Macedonia to disrupt terrorist groups through the application of financial techniques as part of the joint OSCE-UNODC training programme on countering terrorist financing.

During the three-day course in Vienna for each jurisdiction, teams of selected trainers from the relevant agencies and offices in North Macedonia and BIH tailored the training materials to their local contexts, including an elaborate exercise scenario together with four (two per jurisdiction) OSCE and UNODC expert trainers. The inter-agency teams studied the ‘business model’ of terrorist networks and presented tools to design appropriate disruption strategies.

The Assistant Minister at the Ministry of Security of BIH, Ms. Ivana Veselčić addressed the group during the training delivered to BIH and highlighted the ongoing support in the process of developing risk assessment on money laundering and terrorist financing, the drafting of the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, awareness raising on prevention of abuse of non-profit sector for terrorist financing, as well as regional co-operation in the implementation of financial sanctions.

The train-the-trainer module is part of the OSCE-UNODC multi-year training programme on countering terrorist financing in BIH and North Macedonia, funded by the United States of America, which aims to increase the capacity of local beneficiaries to detect and combat terrorist financing, and strengthen compliance with international commitments and standards in this area. These include relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF)’s standards, UN norms and OSCE commitments that promote human rights-based approaches in countering terrorist financing. ​