4.10 Programme Office in Astana crimes, and familiarize them with best international practices in tracing, freezing and recovering stolen assets. From 20 to 22 September, the Head of Office spoke at a threeday workshop co-organized by the Office and the Financial Monitoring Committee on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT). Some 100 representatives of the financial sector, Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions and non-profit organizations were familiarized with the requirements of the FATF, money laundering and terrorism financing risks, as well as measures to mitigate them. OSCE-supported experts from Italy and Serbia shared international best practices on addressing the misuse of non-profit organizations for financing of terrorism purposes and ways of identifying the beneficial owner as part of the customer due diligence procedure. The workshop combined both theoretical lectures and practical exercises on the existing and uprising challenges for the reporting entities under the AML/CFT monitoring framework. On 26 and 27 October in Almaty, the Office, in co-operation with the Financial Monitoring Committee, organized a working meeting to discuss the draft Guide on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism. The event gathered some 15 representatives of the financial and non-financial sector. An OSCE-supported expert from Belarus presented the draft and collected feedback from participants to finalize the Guide, which will be the first of its kind for a specific target audience: pawn shops, microfinance institutions, notaries and precious metal trading companies. From 5 to 7 December in Vienna, the Office facilitated the participation of three government officials from Kazakhstan on a ToT course on countering the financing of terrorism, organized by TNTD and the UNODC Global Programme against Money Laundering. Six national trainers were trained by the international experts of the OSCE and UNODC on financial disruption of terrorist networks and listing terrorists and terrorist organizations for sanctions. The course also highlighted specific instruments and techniques that could significantly improve trainers’ ability to counter terrorist financing and improve inter-agency co-operation to support these objectives. Counter-Terrorism & P/C VERLT From 31 January to 1 February, the Office, in co-operation with the Centre for Military Strategic Research under the Ministry of Defence and the PGO, co-organized an international roundtable discussing factors leading to violent extremism, radicalization and terrorism, and ways to effectively address the threat in different countries. The roundtable brought together some 90 participants including 116 high-level officials from the Senate of Parliament, the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministries of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Interior and Religious Affairs and Civil Society, the Anti-Terrorist Centre as well as national experts, leaders of political parties and representatives of civil society and bilateral embassies. Experts from Austria, Azerbaijan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the UK presented research on methods of violent extremist groups, the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes, deradicalization and re-integration of extremists, recruitment techniques and countering the propaganda of violent extremist groups among young people. A set of recommendations was developed for Kazakhstan’s parliament and national experts on enhancing their interaction and co-operation with civil society in P/C VERLT. On 12 and 13 May, the Office supported a two-day regional workshop in Almaty, organized by the OSCE Austrian Chairmanship, for 14 young experts from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Participants discussed their role in the prevention of VERLT, and ways to use social media and to design campaigns to promote counter- and alternative narratives to violent extremist propaganda in their home countries. They also developed a set of recommendations which was presented to representatives of participating States and Partners for Cooperation at the 2017 OSCE Counter-Terrorism Conference on 23 and 24 May 2017 in Vienna. On 23 and 24 May in Vienna, Austria, the Head of Office attended the OSCE-wide Counter-Terrorism Conference 2017: “Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism and Radicalization that Lead to Terrorism”. He presented the perspective of field missions in work countering VERLT and noted the importance of promoting the relevance of the OSCE field operations to host countries. On 4 and 5 October, the Office and TNTD/ATU co-organized a seminar as part of a joint UNODC-OSCE initiative for Central Asia on criminal justice responses to terrorism. The seminar, funded through ExB support from the United States of America, focused on good practices detailed in the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s Rabat Memorandum. Over 30 practitioners from the judiciary, law enforcement agencies and prison management met with experts in the field of criminal justice from Germany, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Poland, the UK and the United States of America, as well as work by the private financial sector in this area. Participants discussed effective co-ordination mechanisms among domestic government agencies and the importance of international co-operation, in countering terrorism.

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