Transparency

Banjul/Berlin – Gambia Participates and Transparency International welcome the United States government’s announcement on 18 September that it will return approximately US$2.5 million to The Gambia from the sale of a US property purchased with misappropriated Gambian public funds. The money will be used to benefit people in The Gambia harmed by former president Yahya Jammeh’s acts of corruption and abuse of office.

Cryptocurrencies divide opinion. To some, they represent innovation, decentralisation and a new way to invest; to others, they mean speculation, scams and fraud. Virtual assets – the broader regulatory term for cryptocurrencies – allow fast cross-border, peer-to-peer transfers without a bank or broker in between. That’s a real advantage where formal banking is costly, unreliable or simply out of reach.

Money is essential to politics. However, if it flows in opaque, illicit, unconstrained, imbalanced or unaccountable ways, or is prone to incumbency abuse, money can jeopardise the integrity of elections and public decision making.

Corruption still involves envelopes of cash under tables in many countries. But it's also evolving. Transparency International's 2025 annual report shows how corruption is taking new forms, and so is our response. We tackle corruption across multiple fronts: publishing the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), closing governance loopholes, supporting business integrity, protecting people who challenge wrongdoing and pushing law enforcement.

Historically, the human rights and anti-corruption movements have operated largely in silos, with limited collaboration among civil society organisations (CSOs) and among international organisations. This is why the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Transparency International have decided to ally. As a first step, through this guide, FIDH and Transparency International seek to strengthen and develop shared strategies across their networks and beyond.

Financial intelligence units, or FIUs, are meant to spot connections others cannot: the company with a hidden owner, the luxury property bought with unexplained funds, the consultancy fee with no clear service behind it, and the transfer linking people with no obvious financial relationship. On their own, these details may look incomplete or inconclusive. Viewed together, they can reveal the complex financial architecture behind corruption.

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Countries in the Middle East and North Africa region face a common set of structural barriers that constrain their ability to detect, investigate and recover corruption-related stolen assets.

New analysis by Transparency International traces how illicit funds are generated, hidden and moved across the Middle East and North Africa and beyond – draining resources as crises deepen Source image: klyaksun/Shutterstock Posted on: 13 May 2026 Isam Haj Hussein Executive Director, Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN) Here in Palestine, civilians are bearing the brunt of repeated military escalation, mass displacement, and the destruction of essential services, as humanitarian...

In sub-Saharan Africa, corruption is often part of people’s everyday interactions with public services, including those related to land, reflecting the experience of one in five citizens. At its core, land corruption occurs when entrusted power is abused for private gain in the administration and management of land – often enabled by broader governance shortcomings and weaknesses in the systems in place.