National Security Adviser Monica Juma has spelt out a five-point plan to deny terrorist organizations access to finances and in effect limit their capabilities and reach.
Juma proposed enhancing financial intelligence capacity and fostering joint collaboration, establishing a robust policy and regulatory framework to close existing gaps, and cultivating effective public-private partnerships to improve the detection and reporting of suspicious activities.
Other measures include the consistent adoption and deployment of technological solutions to enhance monitoring and tracking, as well as developing strategies to protect informal financial systems from misuse by terrorist financiers.
“It is therefore imperative that we remain ahead of the threat terrorism poses to financial systems because when terrorist organisations are able to exploit global financial systems with impunity, we pay a heavy cost,” said Juma.
Juma spoke at the Third Nairobi Caucus Regional conference which kicked off in Nairobi on Wednesday, bringing together key policy and decision-makers, in the counter-terrorism space.
Similar sentiments were echoed by various speakers as they delved into ways of collaboration to combat the financing of terrorism.
The one-day meeting, themed “Countering the Financing of Terrorism” focused on strategies to detect and disrupt the growing sophistication of terrorist financial networks in physical and virtual spaces that enable them raise, move, store and launder funds for their activities.
The meeting was attended by African Heads of Counter Terrorism agencies and practitioners from Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
