Director-General/Executive Director
Distinguished Experts,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am pleased to welcome you all to Vienna for the 2025 Joint Expert Meeting between UNODC and the Financial Action Task Force.
This is our first event of this year, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and peaceful New Year.
I would like to start by congratulating Ms. De Anda Madrazo on her appointment as President of FATF.
It is always encouraging to see more women leading international organizations, and I look forward to working closely with you in the years ahead.
Distinguished participants,
As we kick off 2025, we have just five years left to achieve the ambitious goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the world is in turmoil.
Financial crime and illicit financial flows continue to drain essential resources needed to reduce poverty, address inequality, and advance the SDGs, peace, and prosperity for all.
Meanwhile, transnational organized crime and terrorist groups are exploiting the same digital technologies used to create financial inclusion, and to move money illegally.
To stay ahead of these threats, we need a paradigm shift from reactive responses to proactive prevention.
This shift requires embedding preventive strategies at every level, from policy formulation to implementation.
Your discussions over the next three days, particularly on asset recovery guidance and terrorism financing risk trends, are a step in the right direction.
Such efforts can empower a more proactive approach to address and prevent vulnerabilities before they materialize.
And UNODC will be ready to work with FATF, as well as with governments and partners, to translate these policy outputs into tangible, tailored actions.
Distinguished experts,
No single organization or country can tackle today’s threats alone.
Global challenges are growing more complex, while available resources are shrinking.
Member States are focusing less attention on crime prevention and official development assistance, and more on military and defence spending.
That is why we need to work together to combine our resources and expertise, to leverage our complementarities, and to build strong partnerships – at all levels.
Because when we speak together, we send a stronger message, including to our donors, whose support is vital to the success of our work.
And we need to work across sectors, with financial institutions, the private sector, and tech companies.
By collaborating on robust regulatory frameworks and compliance mechanisms, we can create an ecosystem designed to prevent vulnerabilities, and safeguard global, regional, and local financial systems.
When I joined UNODC five years ago, I made partnership-building a cornerstone of our corporate strategy.
We have since a built a strong relationship with FATF.
Together, our two organizations bring unique and complementary strengths to the table.
FATF sets the global standards for combating money laundering and terrorism financing.
And as the guardian of the UN conventions against transnational organized crime and corruption, UNODC helps Member States implement these standards, in line with global legal frameworks.
In 2024 alone, UNODC delivered technical assistance to more than 80 countries and trained over 4,000 practitioners on addressing financial crime.
We are now in the process of adjusting our global programme, to align it with the priorities of G20 Finance Ministers, meet emerging challenges, and scale up assistance to Member States.
This includes supporting FATF Mutual Evaluations and Action Plans, enhancing coherence with international policy, and addressing gaps in implementation, particularly in developing countries.
Alongside this, we are working closely with partners like the Egmont Group, INTERPOL, and EUROPOL to deliver technical assistance on anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing.
And together with the World Bank and the IMF, we have prepared a joint policy brief on the importance of combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism for domestic resource mobilization.
Looking ahead, we need to continue building on this work, and we have important opportunities to capitalize on.
The new Cybercrime Convention that Member States adopted at the UN General Assembly last month provides a powerful tool to combat online financial crime and emerging money-laundering methods.
UNODC is committed to supporting countries in their journey to sign, ratify, and implement this important new convention.
In February, UNODC and FATF will join global leaders at the No Money for Terror Conference in Munich, to further align our priorities on countering terrorist financing.
In May, we will come together with FATF and INTERPOL at the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, to build on last year’s joint call to action and continue advocating for the importance of countering financial crime.
And in 2026, the 15th UN Crime Congress in Abu Dhabi will offer a unique platform to address financial crime as a cross-cutting issue, moving beyond siloed approaches and towards integrated strategies.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The work you are doing on asset recovery and countering terrorism financing is essential to the UN’s broader efforts to advance peace, justice, and security.
UNODC is keen to expand our partnership with FATF, as we shift our focus toward prevention, innovate our responses, and strengthen cooperation.
By addressing financial crime comprehensively and collectively, we lay the foundations for resilient institutions, financial inclusion, and sustainable development.
Thank you, and I wish you a productive meeting.
