FATF’s standards, combined with country compliance evaluations, have led to a growth of restrictive regulations for non-profits around the world and contributed to banks refusing services to NPOs. The global coalition of NPOs, spearheaded by ECNL and partners, protests against FATF’s unproven assumption that the entire NPO sector is particularly vulnerable to terrorism financing abuse.
The initiative is supported by a diverse range of nonprofits including over 30 service delivery organisations and networks, over 50 donor organisations and networks, over 20 human rights and transparency organisations and networks, and organisations based both in the ‘global north’ as well as in the ‘global south’. They all requested that the key FATF standard-setting document (Recommendation 8) is put to the agenda in the upcoming FATF February 2016 Plenary meeting. NPOs proposed a change in the language of the Recommendation 8, which would recognise that the vast majority of the millions of NPOs pursue legitimate activities and that abuse for terrorist financing is rare.
We ask on organizations to contact their national government (namely, treasury or ministry of finance, before February 14, 2016), and ask their support for this request during the FATF Plenary meeting. FATF has already made positive changes to address these issues in its 2015 revision of the Best Practices Paper and implementation of a risk-based approach to anti-terrorist financing regulation.
More information can be found here.