At the Security Council meeting on strengthening African leadership and implementation of counter-terrorism initiatives on 21 January 2025, the Minister of State, Minister for Foreign Affairs, National Community Abroad and African Affairs of Algeria, Mr. Ahmed Attaf, referred to the newly adopted non-binding guiding principles for Member States on preventing, detecting, and disrupting the use of new and emerging financial technologies for terrorist purposes (Algeria Guiding Principles). UN Photo/Manuel El¨ªas
On Tuesday, 21 January 2025, the Security Council held an open debate on ¡°African-led and development-focused counter-terrorism: strengthening African leadership and implementation of counter-terrorism initiatives¡± under the agenda item ¡°Maintenance of international peace and security¡± at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
During his opening remarks, the Minister of State, Minister for Foreign Affairs, National Community Abroad and African Affairs of Algeria, Mr. Ahmed Attaf, referred to the newly adopted non-binding guiding principles for Member States on preventing, detecting, and disrupting the use of new and emerging financial technologies for terrorist purposes (Algeria Guiding Principles). ¡°We talk third and last about terrorist groups that have developed a sophisticated modus operandi to finance their activities, relying not only on traditional means like organized crime, illegal migration, human trafficking and kidnapping for ransom but also on new technologies and financial innovations, which render their business networks more complex and harder to detect. In this regard, the Algeria Guiding Principles, adopted recently by the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee, are meant exactly to shed the necessary light, and focus on this issue¡±, Mr. Ahmed Attaf said.
As recognized by the Security Council, innovations in financial technologies may offer significant economic opportunities. They may also present a risk of being misused, including for terrorist purposes. The growing scale of the misuse has since been highlighted in several reports of the United Nations, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and FATF-style regional bodies, as well as by members of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate¡¯s (CTED) Global Research Network and private sector partners.
The Algeria Guiding Principles aim to support Member States in their efforts to enhance the understanding of the terrorism-financing risks associated with new and emerging financial technologies and fundraising methods; develop and implement risk-based proportionate regulation, enhance monitoring and supervision to prevent the abuse of new technologies for terrorism-financing purposes; effectively detect and disrupt such abuses; and evaluate the impact and any unintended consequences of new measures to counter the financing of terrorism related to new technologies. They will be available as a Security Council document in the six official United Nations languages soon.
You can watch the Security Council open debate .