Justicia Shipena
Namibia and Angola have agreed to work together to recover proceeds from money laundering and step up efforts to fight financial crimes.
The two countries’ Financial Intelligence Units signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) during the third Meeting of the SADC AML-CFT Committee held recently in Luanda, Angola.
The agreement focuses on cooperation in tackling money laundering, terrorism financing, and the financing of weapons of mass destruction. It also enables both institutions to collaborate more closely on tracking cross-border financial flows.
The MoU outlines joint capacity-building initiatives and aims to align financial intelligence analysis and investigative techniques .
With this partnership, Namibia and Angola plan to share expertise and strengthen efforts to detect illicit financial flows and recover stolen assets.
The agreement comes as Namibia works to exit the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list.
The country faces a May 2026 deadline to address five remaining action items.
Last month, the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) reported progress in addressing eight of the 13 strategic deficiencies identified by FATF.
Namibia was grey-listed in February 2024 and placed under increased monitoring due to concerns about its ability to meet international standards on anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing, and combating proliferation financing.
On 10 June 2025, the European Union added Namibia to its high-risk jurisdiction list. The listing reflects the EU’s standard practice of aligning with FATF designations.
As a result, EU financial institutions are required to apply extra scrutiny when handling transactions involving Namibian entities, which may lead to higher compliance costs.
